i, personally, am currently responsible for onboarding new employees, and i added an extra ten minutes to the session specifically to talk about what unlimited PTO means and why you should not fall into it's trap. https://twitter.com/Theophite/status/1385067736137539586

unlimited PTO is a trap, and you should under no circumstances ever let yourself be trapped by it. do not log in, do not take calls, do not answer emails. this is part of your compensation, and if you do any of these things, you are volunteering your wallet up to the inspector.

if your boss or your coworkers ask you to be available, you tell them "no", and if they attempt to make you be available, you go to your HR rep. they aren't your friend, but they *are* there to protect the company, and raining hellfire on a boss who violates vacation is their job

if you take a job that offers you unlimited PTO, proceed as if you get an extra week of vacation, and make them reject it. schedule it in advance, communicate clearly about it, and if you get rejected, you ask why, and you involve your HR director in that conversation.

here's the secret you're not told about: most companies that offer this do not have an actual policy in place to control it, and if you challenge them on it, they don't have anything to back it up, and *they know it*, but they hope you do not.

do not be suckered into solidarity with your co-workers, no matter how much you like them. encourage them to follow you. make your company define their policy and until they do, make them fucking regret not having done so.

i am anon on this platform, but i promise you, i am not bullshitting you here, i am telling you the truth. your company that offers unlimited PTO expects you not to use it, and they are not prepared to fight you if you do.

if you accomplish the tasks that are assigned to you and you do your job, you are entitled to unlimited PTO when you are given unlimited PTO. it's a field of landmines for companies, and they know that, and they hope you don't.

also, let me stop you:
"i just want to check in"
"i don't want to dump [x] on [x]"
"i feel bad"

fuck all of this, these are all anti-worker sentiments that you have internalized. this is part of your pay, and you would not let your boss to take the money from your wallet, right?

everyone hates HR now because hR Is nOt yOuR FrIeNd but HR people know this shit inside and out and take it seriously, even if your idiot engineering or sales director or CEO does not, because the HR person's job is to know what the consequences to the company can be.

the lolsob irony of this thread is that i'm a contractor, who has unlimited unpaid time off, and if i take advantage of it, i get forever unlimited unpaid time off

if you find yourself wondering why i, a contractor without vacation time or health insurance, is doing an employee onboarding for my client's employees that do, you'll understand why i'm so strident about this.

i will also tell you that i have never met a single HR employee under the executive level who likes unlimited PTO or thinks it's a good idea, for all of these reasons.

the thing about this is that it's almost always done with the best of intentions — who doesn't like unlimited vacation time? — but in practice, for reasons that are both intentional and unintentional, it gets very badly abused.