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Comment by lordnacho | Hacker News Reader

"Scam" is perhaps a harsh term, but the article does have a point. When you're told it's unlimited, you know there's a limit, you just don't know what it is. Clearly your boss won't be happy with you taking the next year off. So where between 0 and 365 is it?

What will happen is you end up asking someone else what they take. And you're new, so you don't want to be seen to be taking advantage. Poof, everybody takes minimal vacations, only obviously needed days like when there's an illness or life events.

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In some countries (at the least the countries that are European Union members, but probably most countries on the continent) the minimum vacation days is set by law (labor code).

In the countries I have experience with it’s 20 working days per year, sometimes with extra days given based on time spent with the same employer. Also, some employers give extra days from the start. But, importantly, it can never be less than the labor code specified number.

So, unlimited vacation may be a trick in the sense that people will rarely take days off, but you can’t be cheated out of the law mandated vacation. Social protection isn't that bad, after all.

I believe the US is one of 7 countries in the world that _don't_ have minimum vacation days (although I believe individual states could/do have their minimums?).

The others are (per Wikipedia):

* Kiribati

* Marshall Islands

* Micronesia

* Nauru

* Palau

* Tonga

That said, your ability to actually _enforce_ your right to minimum holidays is going be pretty variable.

Its noteworthy that, of the other 6 of those 7, 4 are recently (late 20th Century) independent former US (or US-administered Trust) territories.

We have an average of 40 days off in France and it is still not enough to sustain school vacation.

In that "No Rules" Netflix culture book, they talk about how Netflix doesn't have an expense policy, they just tell people to be reasonable and leave it up to them. That struck me as a harmful way to do it - basically forcing most people to err on the side of caution because they are worried about being seen as wasteful. Unlimited vacation policy is the same IMO.

It's captured perfectly in "17 pieces of flair is the minimum, some people choose to add extra to express themselves"

I feel like this idea that the limit must be set in stone comes from anchoring bias. Obviously drinking 10 bottles of beer in one sitting will get you totally wasted, so there must be a limit between 0 and 10 bottles. Where exactly is it? Well, it depends on the person. Tolerance levels differ and people moderate to different degrees (and levels of moderation may not even be proportional to levels of tolerance).

With work, there's also different degrees of how much vacation one needs and also how much they feel comfortable asking for. A workaholic might be less inclined to take vacation than someone who likes to travel, and a more confident person might be more inclined to book more vacation days than one who isn't as confident.

Let's not generalize and assume everyone is too spineless to ask their boss for vacations they're entitled to.

If you can take higher than the typical counted vacation days offered from other companies then it’s a relative benefit yes? If that was a consideration in hiring on there little reason to be afraid of using it. If it turns out you can’t use it that way then that tells you important information too.

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