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> have a halfway decent human being as a manager,

doesn't that explain why it's not a good policy? Basically the employee's right has changed to manager's generosity.

Indeed. The commentor above is basically replying "I got mine!" Hopefully they don't get transferred to a less ideal manager later, seems like a very short-sighted viewpoint.

With reorgs I once had five different managers in a single year while I worked at Microsoft, and a few of them were not so great. One was even very publicly fired (publicly as in being the subject of a WSJ and other main stream media articles). Worst year of my professional life. So much can change so quickly with a change of manager.

If the manager doesn't support a reasonable amount of vacation time, then there are almost certainly other issues. It is hard for me to fathom the intersection of "good manager" and "doesn't support vacation time" not being NULL. If someone is in this situation, they should vote with their feet - the manager clearly doesn't have their best interests at heart, and this will impact them on multiple dimensions.

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