Ask HN: Can you take more than 2 consecutive weeks of vacation?
For context, I work in a US startup. I wanted to take 3 weeks of vacation to visit my family on the other side of the earth. But I was told by my manager that I need to work remotely during 1 of the 3 weeks, in order to follow the convention.
Is there an unspoken rule/etiquette to take no more than 2 consecutive weeks of vacation?
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 166 ms ] threadNo, as long as you give your manager the heads up with enough notice, so they can find someone to cover for you, you can use all your vacation in one shot.
Note, at least with me, this means no more vacation bridge days, and more consideration needing to head out early, etc.
Also, if we are at an unlimited vacation org, this means you only have 1-2 weeks of vacation left over.
But it’s not exactly unexpected that you may need to negotiate something with your specific employer. It sucks tho.
It typically hasn't been a problem if there is lots of notice, but "I'd like to take 3 weeks off next month" is likely to end up with a bunch of back and forth at best.
My current place has a number of international hires, and has been pretty flexible about allowing large blocks of time to go "home" and visit, some mix of vacation time, unpaid leave, and remote work for 4+ weeks. But these have typically been planned many months in advance.
Your manager is a bad manager.
Sincerely, A Former Manager
The absolute worst position to be in is on a critical but non-visible infrastructure piece, where nobody outside the immediate team notices your impact, until it falls over and takes the entire business with it while it's offline. You end up without flashy deliveries to leverage as political capital to advocate for yourself, yet still with the downsides of having difficulty justifying time away due to business risk.
I've been able to take blocks as long a 3 weeks off at an employer with an unlimited PTO policy, because I worked hard when I was there and my manager and I were on the same page. I told them when I was going and how long for, and they said nice, have fun.
Etiquette was to give at least 2x as much notice as the duration of the PTO. If you're going to take 3 weeks off give at least 6 weeks notice.
They don't have to, they choose to.
We track days of PTO where I work and there's no approval process. You take the days you want to take and that's that.
It's the ideal way to do it IMO.
What I meant was that the employer has a policy where your manager or some other authority has to approve the PTO.
To your point this is a choice.
But, to make lemonade, I make sure to take 4-5 weeks of PTO per year, EVERY year. That way, it's actually a perk/advantageous over traditional PTO packages.
These experiences blow my mind - I have managed to take 4-5 weeks of PTO, total, over the course of a decade in my career at "unlimited PTO" startups due to pretty much always being mission critical, and even those took some real pushing.
If you say you're going to take 5 weeks of PTO every year, and that was negotiated during the offer phase, well they can't then say you can't take it. Particularly if you want to take December off, say to wind down and go on some ski vacations.
What companies with "unlimited PTO" really mean, is that it's negotiable -- primarily in their favor.
It is a part of my compensation package/job offer. Therefore I am entitled to it as much as I am entitled to my pay check.
How far out did you discuss this with your employer? Were they aware of it when you joined? There's a pretty big difference if this is 6 months or two weeks away. Setting expectations go a long way here on both sides.
What is the size of the business? People are more critical the smaller the business is. The stakes are very different for a business with 10 vs 100 vs 1,000 employees.
Is the business cashflow positive—or near it? You said startup, so that makes me think they aren't cash flow positive. Three consecutive weeks is a lot to ask for a small business that isn't making money.
Essentially, the more stable the business is the less of an issue I'd expect it to be—given expectations were set in advance.
Your employees accrue PTO. If you can't handle them using their PTO, maybe you shouldn't have employees.
If three consecutive weeks is a lot to ask, what would you do when that same employee gets hit by a bus and is dead for even longer?
Oh right, you'd just replace them and the business would move on.
OP, this is the real answer to your question. The business doesn't care about you or your well being.
If you are one of 100 CSRs, then it wouldn't be business-destroying obviously.
Business owners can take this risk but using "don't take more than 2 weeks of PTO" as a risk mitigation strategy is disingenuous and disrespectful to their employees.
Haven't you ever joked about the "bus factor"? All the startups I've worked at would have likely failed if any one of the core people had to depart, for any reason.
"Unbelievable nonsense" is a pretty harsh response. If they are working for a 10-person business burning cash, that is very different than a profitable 1,000-person one.
The poster asked about etiquette. Personally, I'd be offended as a founder or employee at a 10-person company if someone asked for 3 weeks off at the last minute.
Absolute nonsense.
In the private sector, I think I took one two-week vacation. It was not a problem, but it had to be approved.
One company I worked with had a mandatory 8 week sabbatical after 10 years, and every 5 years thereafter. It had to be taken as a single block of time off.
The US has no minimum vacation time. Most folks go their whole career without ever seeing 5 weeks off in a single year. It's common for workers to start at 5-10 days. At the bottom end of the economic ladder, there's no paid time off at all, and if you try to take off a whole week off you might be told "no" with the alternative of "quit".
And this is not counting any public holidays that might or might not fall on weekdays, which also depend on per country.
Not to forget that sick days are well sick days. So it could be if you get sick on vacation you don't lose that vacation time...
EDIT for context: Spanish consulting company