r/unpopularopinion • u/MichiganCarNut • 1d ago

Unlimited vacations (responsible vacations) is a terrible work benefit for many

My wife and son both have unlimited vacations for their work (not same company). They both brag about it as if it's a great benefit. My wife hasn't taken more than 10 days off in recent years because she thinks it will look bad (she previously got 4 weeks before the switch to unlimited). And when she does, she's still checking emails and attending meetings. My son, who's only been with the company for about 8 months, asked for 1 friday off recently and was grilled by his manager.... he was asked if he was on track to meet all deadlines and his manager reviewed the statuses of all his tasks before approving the day off. They both still like the idea of being able to take more if they need to. lol

I'd much rather know specifically how many paid days I get per year, and just use them up without having to worry about who's analyzing it. Incidentally, I'm self-employed so paid vacations is foreign to me altogether

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u/Islander255 1d ago

The sneakiest, scammiest part of unlimited PTO is that they don't have to do any vacation payout when you leave staff. When I do PTO payouts on payroll, outgoing staff are normally getting anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars, depending on how many vacation days they still had left.

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u/Sammys_Zombie 1d ago

Yup. When I retire they’re going to have to cut me a check for 1,352 hours, the maximum sick time, vacation, holiday, and comp time accrual. At my current rate that’s just a little under 100k.

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u/bangzilla 23h ago

What company allows you to accrue that much? Huge financial liability for them.

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u/Sammys_Zombie 23h ago

I work for a municipality. Firefighters can accrue even more than us, an additional 480 hours.