Now, THAT is some work/life balance

What kind of time off do you get from work? My current situation is OK by most standards -- 20 days per year total PTO (combined vacay, sick, personal, whatevs), plus a kind of stingy seven official holidays (the majors, not Presidents' Day and so forth). It's especially good compared to my first job out here in sunny Galivornia: 10 days per year for vacation, 3 for sick time, and that's it. When I flew to Texass for my own father's funeral, they grudgingly and extremely ungraciously allowed me three days, unpaid. I turned in my notice shortly after that ... but anyhoo. No matter what the deal is, whatever time off I have, you bet your ass I use it, because they're not getting one minute of my allotted time.

I was sent this article today on Netflix's truly revolutionary PTO policy for their HQ workers, which is: They don't keep track of it. You take it when you need it, as long as you get your work done. They don't allocate a set number of days, they don't ask you what it's for or why -- they just ... give it to you. And apparently, it works smashingly well; most people take 25-30 days a year (which is a humane and reasonable amount, IMO), and they're trustworthy about it (being sensitive to time of year in re: their particular job, tying up loose ends before an extended trip, etc.), because they are trusted to do so.

This is the way I've wanted to work all my life. My employer would get SO MUCH MORE out of me this way. It's the way I'd run my own business -- I always thought that was maybe naive of me, to expect everyone else to be self-driven and personally accountable like that, but I'd rather a few people cheat the system than everybody be so rigidly controlled and policed. And here I find out -- it can really work! Amazing.