Bullshit. Vacation [1] IS the answer for burnout. Long vacations are even more ok for burnout. Sabbaticals are the most ok. Guess what a doctor would recommend you do if you're having health issues from burnout?
If there's chronic burnout in your company/org then indeed, no amount of vacation will fix that. But neither would flexible work hours or mental health support.
[1] Vacation means complete and total disconnect from work or work related activities. That goes beyond not checking work emails. I'm talking no leetcode or learning some new JS framework.
Agreed. We need European-style month-long vacations in the US. And sabbaticals every few years. Also we should start looking at 36 and 32-hour workweeks.
We're 20x more productive than 40 years ago, yet still work the same hours or more for pay increases that barely keep up with inflation.
That sounds really bad man. I'm originally from Germany,but lived previously in Asia(Singapore/Hong Kong), New Zealand and now Australia. I never got less than 3 weeks vacation.
The US is a good environment to innovate, but it's mostly good for companies and not people.
Mind sharing where exactly in Europe is 8 weeks vacation the norm? In Austria it's 5 weeks for everyone but law and that's what most tech companies will give you as well.
We need our brains to disconnect and we need at least 4 days to a week to start feeling "on vacation" [citation needed], so anythin less than say two weeks or whatever (milage may vary) and you just came from work or are worrying about going back to work. Last time I went on vacation I forgot for a moment where I worked :-)
For me a vacation, it's every day, every time I take my bike, go in the nature, it's something short and intense. I don't need to cut off several week from a job, take a plane to an exotic island. No, not only for environmental reasons, but I don't need it, just working less every day will be more efficient for me when I need to regenerate
If there's chronic burnout in your company/org then indeed, no amount of vacation will fix that. But neither would flexible work hours or mental health support.
[1] Vacation means complete and total disconnect from work or work related activities. That goes beyond not checking work emails. I'm talking no leetcode or learning some new JS framework.