| ▲ | nicbou 11 hours ago |
| One of the reasons I left North America for Europe is that such things are normalised. The cultural difference is staggering. In Germany, if you are on vacation, you are simply not available. You are dead to the world until you return. Emails do not get read, and devices get left at the office. Another neat thing is that if you get sick on vacation, you get your vacation days back, because vacation days are for resting and recovering. |
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| ▲ | gacgacgac 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| I'm a senior at a big tech company. You can do this in America too. Just communicate with your manager and set the boundary. "By the way, when I'm on vacation I'm away from devices, so let's coordinate beforehand if there's anything critical path." |
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| ▲ | coldpie 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | 100%, and it extends beyond vacations, too. Unless you have a formal on-call arrangement, then any time you spend doing work stuff outside of your work hours is time you are choosing to donate to your company. It's fine if you want to do that, but you don't have to. I work 8-4 every day. I am not contactable outside that window and definitely not contactable on my days off. I haven't worked at a ton of different places, but at the places & teams I have worked with, I've never had anyone object to this policy. | | |
| ▲ | ryandrake 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | In the USA at least, I've found that this kind of "not working means not available" arrangement is easier or harder based on your seniority and the kind of company you work for. I am able to hold the line on this now, 25 years into my career, but it took a long time to get to this point, and I never would have been able to swing it when I was a junior programmer, and when I was working in a hyper-work-obsessed startup. Back in the early 2000s when I was Junior Engineer Number 32204, and not particularly valuable to my medium sized company in a competitive industry, I could never have gotten away with "Oh, by the way, boss, I am totally unreachable nights and weekends, and don't bring work with me on vacation." But, now, quite a bit more senior in my career and working in a "comfortable" big tech role, it's possible. | | |
| ▲ | ethagnawl 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Back in the early 2000s when I was Junior Engineer ... I tried something like this over July 4th weekend last time I was full-time anywhere (startup; 2010) and it very quickly devolved into an i-quit-you-cant-quit-i-fired-you situation and the company withholding my final paycheck. (New York State employment law does not mess around and I was eventually paid after dragging the deadbeat through Small Claims.) It traumatized me and is in large part why I've been a freelancer / running my own consultancy ever since. My self-employed situation is better in some way and worse in others but I can't even imagine what it's like to not have my back against the wall 24/7/365. :( | |
| ▲ | lokar 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | This was mostly my experience. Once I was very Sr and reporting to the VP my solution was people could get in touch via the VP, his admin or my admin. Worked well (there were some things I really did need to be called for). But not a general solution. But with a good manager can work more broadly. And I did see a couple managers do something similar for their teams, making it clear that if you need emergency attention contact the oncall, if for some reason that won’t do call the manager. This friction alone deals with most issues. | |
| ▲ | coldpie 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | It's a small number of data points, but neither of my two early-career jobs had any expectations like that. I've never explicitly said "I'm not reachable," I just have never worked or responded to work communications outside of work hours, and no one has ever questioned me on it. |
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| ▲ | blauditore 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > if you are on vacation, you are simply not available. You are dead to the world until you return. Emails do not get read, and devices get left at the office. It's funny because that's kind of the definition of a vacation in my book. I find it weird that some places in the world handle it differently. Note that it's also much better for the company in the long run: It's a test of resilience and redundany, the famous bus factor. It simulates what happens if someone is not available, and forces the organization around to have a backup plan. Having those is important for cases where employees leave the company or team (switching jobs/teams, accidents, sickness, parental leave, death, burnout, layoffs etc.). It's mind-boggling how many leads at various levels just don't understand that. |
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| ▲ | alibarber 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | I remember vaguely from interning at a bank that there you were actually obliged to be totally isolated from the company for a continuous period of time by policy. The thinking was that if you were cooking the books of doing some dodgy dealing on the side it would come to light without you there to actively 'manage' it. |
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| ▲ | SoftTalker 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I've lived and worked in America my entire life, and in my approximately 40 years of working I've never had a job where I was expected or had to arrange to be available during a vacation. For the odd unplanned personal day maybe I'd try to check email and have my phone with me. But vacation, never. |
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| ▲ | jayd16 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | It doesn't need to be arranged. Like you said, we would check email ourselves of our own volition. |
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| ▲ | jayd16 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > if you get sick on vacation, you get your vacation days back, This slightly blew my American mind but it makes sense. What about getting sick on calendar holidays? |
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| ▲ | BadBadJellyBean 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Not to forget that you get a minimum of four weeks of vacation per year with 30 days being offered most of the time. This year I used my vacation time well and I already had 3 weeks off while I still have almost 4 weeks left. |
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| ▲ | Cthulhu_ 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| This is how it should be though - nobody should be irreplaceable. Look up bus factor etc. |
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| ▲ | fender256 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Thanks for the reminder that this shouldn't be taken for granted. I am a German and sometimes this privilege feels so normal that it's unthinkable that it could be different elsewhere in the world. |
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| ▲ | nicbou 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | I help immigrants integrate for a living. Germany can be a frustrating country, but this is one of its best redeeming qualities. I'd also add that the culture allows and encourages sick days. The average is 15 sick days per year IIRC. | | |
| ▲ | patates 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Totally off-topic, but I read your profile to learn about this: https://allaboutberlin.com - you do awesome work, thank you! Now I wonder if I could help the immigrants in my area (I'm in Hesse/Hessen), thanks for the inspiration too. | |
| ▲ | 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | teruakohatu 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The average number of sick days used is 15 or the number of days offered? In New Zealand we get a minimum of 10 sick working days per year but some companies offer more and allow unused sick leave to accumulate. | | |
| ▲ | Genmutant 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | You don't have an offered number of sick days in Germany. If you're sick, your sick. At some points (after 6 weeks) the employer stops paying for it, and the payment switches to the health insurance and drops down to 70% of your usual gross salary (with some more specifics). | |
| ▲ | tumdum_ 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Sick days are not “offered” by employers. Sick days are prescribed by the doctors and there is no upper limit. After all, your sickness will not disappear just because it has been N days. That's at last how it is in Poland. | | |
| ▲ | Autious 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | Sweden has 14 sick days no questions asked before you need a doctors note. The German way of having to call your doctor for a flu note is a little odd to me. You do loose the first day's pay (the meme is that too many people were off sick when there was a world cup finals or something), and then 80% pay. | | |
| ▲ | lionkor 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | This is not accurate. In Germany, you usually only have to get a doctor's note at 2 or 3 days, if youre only sick for a day or two you don't need one. And there's an unlimited number of sick days. As long as you have a doctor's note, you still get paid, up to some ridiculous limit at which you might have to get government support instead. | | |
| ▲ | fabian2k 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It's up to the employer, they can ask for a doctor's note from day 1. Many employers have more lenient rules, though. | |
| ▲ | inigyou 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I think at some limit the health insurance pays back the employer, right? |
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| ▲ | jorvi 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > You do loose the first day's pay Many countries have this system and the usual effect is that the duration people are sick for is magically never less than 2 days. It's dumb policy. | | |
| ▲ | msh 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | yeah, when denmark switched from loosing first days pay to the first day also being paid sick rates dropped more than enough to pay for it. |
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| ▲ | sensanaty 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Even the concept that you need permission from your employer to take a sick day is crazy to me. After all, if you're sick, you're sick, not like a hard deadline of 15 days (or whatever) is going to make the sickness go away? | | |
| ▲ | degamad 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The point of the deadline is not that you can't be off work, but that you stop getting paid for not working. For example, the way it works in Australia is that after you have used up your sick days, you have to take any further absences from work out of your annual leave balance, and once that is exhausted, you switch to leave without pay. I had a downline team member who once needed to extend their time away from work for over 5 months due to illness. They had been with the company for several years at that point, so they had a reasonable sick leave balance, probably 10 weeks. When it became clear that they needed longer, they used their remaining 4 weeks of annual leave, then took a month of leave without pay, then another. They were still employed, I approved their leave requests each time they needed to extend, and we just used the most appropriate tool that was available at the time. The thing you're getting permission for is not to be sick, it is to be considered still employed while not doing work, rather than being fired/disciplined for being AWOL. | |
| ▲ | account42 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | And you'd think that it would be in the interest of the employer too to not have people come in with a flu and infect everyone in the office. |
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| ▲ | nicbou 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I wrote a primer about sick days here: https://allaboutberlin.com/guides/sick-leave 15 is the average. I use it to reassure people that it's okay to take sick days, and not one of those rights that no one dares to use. Usually, employers ask for a doctors' note after 3 consecutive sick days, but the reason for the sickness remains hidden from the employer. The note just gives a time range, nothing more. |
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| ▲ | naturalmovement 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| It can honestly be annoying, if you're not privvy to it. I remember years ago needing urgent support for some bespoke European hardware we were developing software for. When we called support, we were greeted with a phone message stating the company was closed for the entire month due to vacation. This was not a one-man operation; the whole office closed for a summer holiday. We thought it was a joke. Needless to say we started to look for a new vendor shortly thereafter... |
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| ▲ | my-next-account 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I'm surprised, typically we don't all take vacation at the same time, but stagger it. | | |
| ▲ | prmoustache 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It really depends on the areas. On white collar jobs yes. It is more frequent in blue collars workers because it is easier to close completely or partially (several lines) in a factory than having to manage different vacations schedules. Constructions companies also do stop because you usually need most workers available + hot weather makes it harder anyway. Small/familiar companies also do it frequently because it doesn't make sense to work if you have dependencies on a number or unavailable persons. | | |
| ▲ | knollimar 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | I've seen construction companies use all their vacatiom in December in America (since it sucks to work in in the cold) |
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| ▲ | calessian 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | It's not entirely uncommon, even companies like Volkswagen have 3 weeks of summer vacation. Strictly speaking, some people still work there for maintenance, etc. that can't be done while making cars, but the majority is on vacation. I know a handful of companies with a week of mandatory Christmas vacation as well (but there's typically not too many working days between Christmas and New Years' either way). | | |
| ▲ | Symbiote 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | In England, I had summer jobs in factories when I was a teenager, since they needed extra hands to help with cleaning / maintenance during the annual shutdown. I don't know if this work would have been offered to staff who turned it down, or if they preferred to have their staff on holiday at the same time. |
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| ▲ | teruakohatu 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | My advice is don’t ever buy anything that might need support from New Zealand between 24 Dec and 5 Jan. The entire country is just about closed (other than non-niche consumer stores). Many companies force staff to take vacation days during this time, and there are four (yes four!) public holidays during this period. | |
| ▲ | breakingcups 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I mean, that's not usual at all in Europe either. |
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