I think you're derisively trying to trivialize something which is actually fairly significant.
I only have 14 days of PTO a year, and that includes sick time. I use almost all those days visiting family, especially my parents, all of whom live hundreds of miles from me. I took the week of Christmas off this year and still ended up committing some code. It wasn't much, but the people who weren't taking off easily could have done it (i.e., it wasn't something that only I knew how to do). I was still asked to do it.
Although I could easily pay cash for a nice European vacation, I won't go on one this year because I don't have the time.
I'm making my job sound terrible. It's not, far from it, but your extremely mechanical interpretation of the parent post is pretty frustrating for me to read. This sort of policy has real effects on real people's lives. It doesn't just affect me, either--it affects my parents who can only see me a few weeks out of the year. I don't know about you, but I don't believe in an afterlife, so this is all the time I've got for them. I don't own a home, but if I did and I had to use some of my very valuable PTO just to do home maintenance, while still being expected to commit code while taking PTO or in the evenings occasionally, you can bet I'd be pretty upset.
Thanks for the link to seeyourfolks.com That's quite a poignant site, and a another reminder about what's really important. Great article, and a great discussion thread.
I only have 14 days of PTO a year, and that includes sick time. I use almost all those days visiting family, especially my parents, all of whom live hundreds of miles from me. I took the week of Christmas off this year and still ended up committing some code. It wasn't much, but the people who weren't taking off easily could have done it (i.e., it wasn't something that only I knew how to do). I was still asked to do it.
Although I could easily pay cash for a nice European vacation, I won't go on one this year because I don't have the time.
I'm making my job sound terrible. It's not, far from it, but your extremely mechanical interpretation of the parent post is pretty frustrating for me to read. This sort of policy has real effects on real people's lives. It doesn't just affect me, either--it affects my parents who can only see me a few weeks out of the year. I don't know about you, but I don't believe in an afterlife, so this is all the time I've got for them. I don't own a home, but if I did and I had to use some of my very valuable PTO just to do home maintenance, while still being expected to commit code while taking PTO or in the evenings occasionally, you can bet I'd be pretty upset.
http://seeyourfolks.com/