When I've heard about "micro retirements" before, it's been in the context of taking months long sabbaticals, not a regular amount of paid time off to take in a single block
this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2025
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1-2 weeks every 12-18 months is seen as a lot? No one tell them about europe πΆ
I guess everyone is doing macro-retirement every year in EU.
12-18 months??? I read it as weeks and was still considering it normal vacation.
Can confirm: I get 6 weeks paid vacation per year, and time spent on vacation is paid slightly more than actual work time.
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I was working in a European branch of a SF based private company. It's a company that tries really hard to have good optics everywhere, from being listed as PBC down to "support and inclusion" talks.
US employees officially had "unlimited" vacation days, European had 25. Plus the company has a practice of giving an extra Friday off once a month, plus few days for Christmas break plus one year there was a week of summer break.
That year with a summer break employees in Europe got over 40 days of vacation. 35..37 without it. Plus bank holidays and sick leaves.
I was freaking out after learning that US employees with the unlimited time off were getting under 20. Whenever an employee was using more than 15 vacation days a year, they were presented with an inquiring interview from their manager trying to figure out why they need so much rest.
US has no work culture, it's exploitation.
Unlimited PTO is an accounting dodge because PTO shows up as a liability on the books if it is defined, because if they liquidate the business they need to pay it out in lieu. And number doesnβt go up.
Which is why they also donβt allow carry-over in most cases.
Not unless you do it the right way, i.e. the way it is done in Europe. It is basically mandatory to take vacation days every year up to a specific number. Unlimited PTO makes it so you get extra. I also have a policy of a burnout vacation - if I notice you are burned out you get sent to a mandatory paid vacation. You get to refuse once, as a hangover excuse or "I'm fine, really". But it I notice it again after refusal, you get a choice. Either you go to vacation, or you get fired. It doesn't go into a tally of "I need to talk to this guy, he took 80 days off this year", I treat it as if they'd worked. Oh, and 100% paid sick leave instead of a percentage, all they need is to talk to their doctor and they put in that they are sick in the system.
The agreement about time off is you get the 25 mandated by the law, anytime, without any request beforehand, as long as it won't make the sun explode. Instead of people requesting time off, I request time "on", if I need to work with them, have them in a meeting or train someone.
My "off the contract" ask to them is "I'll try to treat you as fair as I can, and ask you to do the same in return". I did get screwed over by an employee once, but so far I can still maintain this policy
Agreed.
The way I think it should be is:
- mandatory 25 days of vacation, plus statutory holidays
- mandatory vacation is subtracted from any performance targets (i.e. it is accounted for in business planning and not offloaded to the employee)
- vacation beyond that is unlimited, but may impact your performance
- major anniversary events within the company grant paid leave of absences
To the last point - I donβt recall which company it was - I have seen one where after a certain period of service your granted a 3 or 6 month leave of absence to go do something else. Travel the world, get really deep into Japanese joinery, or build a new version of DNS. I think thatβs something that is healthy for humans.
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A company telling you you've got unlimited off days is actually really bad because it means they will just engage in this judging practise.
If they tell you you've got 25 days then that's great you know how many days you've got, if it's unlimited they start being argumentative around day 10. So in reality people with unlimited time off actually end up with fewer days.
Working for a European company is great, currently I'm being told that I need to take 2 weeks off, in addition to the holiday I've already booked off.
Also you don't get paid out for "unlimited PTO" when you leave. I have something like 45 days of PTO saved up, and if/when I leave my company, I will be paid for those 45 unused days along with any other severance package that is included. Unlimited PTO is a trap.
Wow, that article is really trying to make vacations "special" and trying to indicate most people want this "new" thing as a benefit, unpaid.
This is too stupid to share, even in a humorous or ironic sense. That's rare. Holy hell.
Not satire: https://www.fastcompany.com/91357784/what-is-a-micro-retirement-inside-the-latest-gen-z-trend
But they specify that unlike PTO, this is an unpaid time off, which can be a break inbetween jobs or a unpaid vacation.
Still fucking ridiculous to call it "micro-retirement"
Soon we will hear how gen z is having nano-retirements every 5 days of work that can include 2 days of no work and often destructive behaviour such as parties and binge watching tv.
What about those eight hours at night? I mean people hardly even think about work while they are dreaming.
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Is the original satire? I know Americans are obsessed with presentism on the job, but even they understand the concept of a vacation?
It's hard to tell. I've worked at places that would definitely fire me for using a week of vacation, and legally in my state vacation isn't a tangible guaranteed thing; it's completely legal to just fire the employee instead if they try to use it without compensation. Practically some jobs don't have time off. You just get fired.
Thats β¦ really worker unfriendly
My wife was fired from a job for getting sick (kidney stones). We were told if we don't like it, sue, but I bet you can't afford either with the medical bills. It took us years to pay for that stone.
There are some very unkind people out there who take advantage of their position. It's a right-to-work state which just means that you can be fired for any and no reason with no recourse. It's dystopian as hell. Most people in these positions put up with it because they enjoy eating.
Stuff like this really makes me want to scream.
I get that Americans like the illusion of freedom, but the only freedom here is enjoyed by the employer. That they can get away with it is so fucked up.
What are you, some kind of communist? Don't make me call ICE on you!
In the U.S. it's a long propaganda history called "right to work." It's sold as being freedom and rights for the people, but really it just strips unionizing rights away and gives corporations power.
Like most laws in the U.S., it's all lies and only abject morons buy it.
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My work offered a compressed work week for a few years where employees could work the same number of hours over 9 days every fortnight, meaning they could take every second Friday off still working the same number of hours. Employees based in NA didn't get that benefit, instead of trying to get that implemented over there NA employees were practically celebrating when the company recently scrapped it everywhere else instead.
My experience of American work culture is very much toxic crab-in-a-bucket mentality, pull everyone else down instead of trying to make work life the littlest bit more bearable, ironically directly contradicting the company's slogan. The amount of brown-nosing sycophants on all-teams calls is pretty insane too.
So yes, I very much believe this is something American media would say.
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how dare you! cracks whip your glorious CEO deserves that bonus and you should be grateful for being a minute part of this occasion.
New bullshit jargon just dropped.
π€¨
I wonder what this kind of people think about >20days of vacation in Europe.
Give me 30 days for a 40hr workweek or get out
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As a member of Gen Y, it's been interesting seeing younger generations take on habits I've been doing for years. A few years ago I took a couple weeks to take a road trip across the country, after quitting one job and acquiring a start date for a new one (to start after I returned.) I've been doing this because vacations in the US of 2 or more weeks are impossible to get in many jobs.
For the situation above, I had planned a vacation for the first job - I requested it nearly two months early. Then a few days before I was set to go (after I'd already booked a place to stay), my boss attempted to deny my time off. Thankfully, HR put their foot down and I was able to go, but it was the last straw for me. So when I got a new job, I planned out time to enjoy for myself before returning to the rat race.
Workers are human. We need a break sometimes. If companies aren't going to respect that basic human need, we're going to find ways to reclaim our time.