The Illusion of Vacation
What if time off was truly unlimited?
My girlfriend and I are traveling, but we're not quite on vacation.
There are plenty of carbs, wine, and scenic vistas to consume, but there are also laptops and wifi hotspots to charge.
If we time it just right, we can have coffee, lunch, and a tour in the books before our East Coast counterparts get to their computers. By the time we log off around midnight / 6pm ET, we’re also dead tired.
We're doing that thing again—trying to maximize time off by not really taking it.
Unlimited paid time off (PTO) is de rigueur for any startup looking to attract millenial talent. It's also more of a recruiting tactic than a policy. It could never be truly unlimited just as there comes a stopping point for even the most ambitious all-you-can-eat buffet goers. And as one CEO let slip,"If [employees] are performing well, we don't care” if they take 4-6 weeks off. “If they are not performing well, we need to have a conversation."1
It follows that those who can prioritize their professional lives will be rewarded professionally. And conversely, those who aren’t as active or high performing--maybe as a result of caring for children or another equally valid reason for not putting in extra hours--might not be punished, but they could be passed over.
So it’s in this shadow that we submit our vacation requests and wonder if we shouldn’t start a trip Friday after work instead of Thursday afternoon. Because compensation and promotions are tied to performance, and advancement of both is the measurement of success at work.
The boundaries of an approved vacation are pretty firm. If you make arrangements to cover your responsibilities, it’s mostly safe to disable or ignore work-related notifications until the dreaded Monday you return. And once the computer is shut down and the work apps are deleted from your phone, it’s relatively easy to slip into vacation mode.
But the question remains if we’re even taking those vacations and if we’re taking enough of them. A study by Namely showed that employees with unlimited PTO actually took 2 fewer days off than those with a set limit.2 A much less scientific poll on my Instagram story showed that 56% of respondents wouldn’t feel comfortable taking off more than 4 weeks even with an unlimited policy.3
No matter what the state of PTO at your place of business is, without a sufficient amount of time away from your day-to-day assignments, it’s difficult to find the space you need to fairly evaluate the work you’re doing and the effect it’s having on you. Without these periodic resets, our field of vision gets shorter, our priorities skew, and we burn out.
What options does that leave us for regaining work/life balance? Should we unionize and collectively bargain for healthier policies? Of course. Should employers institute a minimum amount of time that needs to be taken off? Sounds like a great start.
But we also need to put people over profits and value our mental wellbeing above the bottom line. Ambition can be measured in units other than dollars, admitting you need a break can lead to an unexpected opportunity, and purposely overemploying yourself sounds like a one-way ticket to being a shitty employee, friend, and partner.
So take your vacation, leave your work computer, and set the boundaries that will lead to better results for you and your employer.
So what you’re saying, Jonathan, is that there is a limit and that it’s probably 4 weeks (and definitely not more than 6).
13 days to 15 days
Full results from 81 respondents:
1-2 weeks = 10%
2-4 weeks = 46%
Over a month = 31%
Truly unlimited = 13%