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
3
u/Mediocre-Sundom 20h ago
It's weird that people fall for this "unlimited vacations" scam and that's it's even "unpopular" to state that it's a scam. Which it blatantly is.
If you can't just never show up to work and still get paid, it's not unlimited. If you have to constantly think how "responsible" it is to take your vacations and when - it's not unlimited. If the system is designed to make you feel bad about taking your vacations - it's not unlimited. It's just that the limits are made intentionally unclear to let your employer exploit you more.
It reminds me of those "unlimited" data plans that mobile carriers sell. "You get unlimited data... but if you use too much of it, then we will slow transfer speeds down to a crawl". Well, then it's not unlimited, you scummy assholes.