this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2024
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American. I’m one of the lucky few who have unlimited PTO. I’m seriously underpaid though.
Is that really a thing? I've seen it in a few job offers but I have trouble understanding how it works...
As I understand it you can take as many days as you want and it works on the company's trust, but that system sounds really toxic to me, isn't it?
Edit: I'm European with almost 7 weeks off a year for context
I've never experienced it but the somewhat obvious trick is that it turns into a race to the bottom, where if you want to outperform your peers (or even meet the expectations of the company), the number of days off you freely decided to take turns into a KPI.
So, people take even less days off when they are made free to take any amount.
It's why in Italy, for example, you can not refuse to go to holiday.
It’s a lie.
By making it “unlimited” they don’t need to pay you out of you don’t use all of PTO days.
If you use it more than they think you’ve earned you get terminated.
Employees end up afraid of taking their PTO days and typically end up taking even less time off than if they knew there was a expectation of 3 weeks or whatever.
I don’t think payout is a factor for salaried positions
It depends on the jurisdiction, but in most cases if you have a salaried position with say 3 weeks of PTO but you only take 2 weeks of it. The employer is usually required to pay you over and above your salary for working during your “vacation time”.
If there’s an unlimited PTO policy, they don’t have an obligation to pay you extra for working during vacation time.
I have unlimited and I’ve seen a few people take 2 weeks off consecutively. So it seems like the company is pretty flexible and doesn’t put artificial limitations on it. That said, I’m pretty sure even a month off wouldn’t fix the damage that’s been done to my brain from years stacked upon years of redlining it to write code and solve problems. I find as I get older I need more time off to truly disconnect.