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Unlimited vacation isn’t unlimited

I worked at a tech company where they did not track or have accrual of vacation hours (for full-time, exempt employees). Commonly, people refer to this as “unlimited” vacation. It's even advertised this way in many job postings under company perks. One time, during a quarterly company town hall, someone asked the CEO (who's also the company founder) the question, “How much vacation can I REALLY take even though it's unlimited?” CEO says, “There's no unlimited vacation. You take what you need. That's our policy.” This led to a wonderful back-and-forth between the CEO and other people in the audience around some people taking a lot more vacation than others, some managers allowing more or fewer hours, some jobs are too busy to allow for much vacation, etc. The CEO showed expertise in dodging all the questions and never giving a straight answer other than, “You work it out with…


I worked at a tech company where they did not track or have accrual of vacation hours (for full-time, exempt employees). Commonly, people refer to this as “unlimited” vacation. It's even advertised this way in many job postings under company perks.

One time, during a quarterly company town hall, someone asked the CEO (who's also the company founder) the question, “How much vacation can I REALLY take even though it's unlimited?”

CEO says, “There's no unlimited vacation. You take what you need. That's our policy.”

This led to a wonderful back-and-forth between the CEO and other people in the audience around some people taking a lot more vacation than others, some managers allowing more or fewer hours, some jobs are too busy to allow for much vacation, etc.

The CEO showed expertise in dodging all the questions and never giving a straight answer other than, “You work it out with your manager about your time off.”

My manager has favorites and I wasn't one of them. The favorites took lots of time off, and when I try to take even a day, I get interrogated with 20 questions.

Screw you, you slimy CEO. And screw you too, you numb nuts manager.

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