denverkarma

The details I’ve commented on are the ones present in the authors writing. Atlassian is not perfect, but the story as told is far from complete. But beyond that, I don’t have anything to gain from elaborating, and the author is already angry and going through a lot, so why pile on?

I agree with you about how it looks reading only this persons story. However, my experience with Atlassian was that taking PTO is no problem, and normally a request like this would not have met pushback. From what I know of the situation, there was a lot more to it than this.

The promo process there is a mess for sure. They were trying to fix the issue of having different offices all around the world, and that people's standards in different markets were - well - different. But the effort to create globally a standardized promotion process meant it became very hard to get promoted, and as a manager it sucked when you had people on your team who absolutely deserved it but got stuck in the process and had to wait 1-2 years more than they should have, or leave in order to get a vertical move.

Believe what you want. I no longer work at Atlassian, and I had my own frustrations with the company. There are definitely some internal struggles, and specific teams under a lot of pressure, and if you get caught in one of those situations it sucks. The specific team this person was on is under a lot of pressure, and this person is not the only person who quit over it.

But the person who wrote this article did not give an accurate portrayal of the entire situation.

My experience was that Atlassian was very generous with PTO, but it's true there was no accrual. I was encouraged to take 20-30 days off per year, and I did, and I never got pushback. My experience was that nearly everyone took 4-5 weeks off per year, and those that did not were often encouraged to take more PTO.

There was an entitlement for 6 weeks paternity leave and 6 months maternity leave, which is very good for the US.

But there is no accrual. I know that some people there had a really hard time with the idea of "unlimited" and felt that they could't use their time off if they didn't know how much they "really" had. The truth was you really had as much as your manager said, but this sucked for managers because occasionally someone would abuse it and try to just work 3 days a week, so they tried to give guidance. The standard guidance was "we want you to take at least 20 days off, and you should be fine up to 30, if it's more than that we might start saying no."

The person who wrote this post did not, and still does not, understand that this guidance is not the same as accrued vacation.

You're correct about unlimited PTO, it's absolutely a mixed bag.

I worked at Atlassian, and my experience was that people were actively encouraged to take between 20-30 days off per year, and that getting vacation was usually a mere formality - telling your manager "hey I'm planning to take the week of so and so off, any issue with that?" I never had vacation or sick time checked, never had any denied, and I very much took advantage of the benefit.

Still, the manager does have to approve it, so I have heard stories about teams that are understaffed declining vacation when they don't have enough people to be on call etc. I don't know how that would work out differently if you did have accrual vacation though... somebody does have to be on-call. It's tough.

The person took paid medical leave, and when that ended, was offered unpaid leave. They didn't want to use unpaid leave, they wanted to "use their earned vacation." But the person did not understand - apparently still does not understand - that there is no accrued vacation.

I'm sorry I can't speak to details as this is all very personal for the folks involved, but I know all the people involved in this story and can tell you this is not a very fair account of what happened. It was a long-running and very difficult situation for everyone involved.

The fact that they are more than capable of innovation and shrewd business is the entire reason that casually stealing whatever they want on top of things is problematic.

So when is the western world going to wake up and realize that China is a cutthroat competitor that does not respect western law or traditions, cannot be trusted, and intends to dominate the world? This seems especially troubling for the tech world as IP is easily copied and the only thing that really protects it is the legal system, which China has shown over and over they don't care about.

To be honest I’m not so bothered by the idea that depression could be extrinsic, or at least partially extrinsic.

What I find “crudely reductionist,” in the article is the very idea of “capitalist realism,” and the idea that some notion called “capitalism,” can be the cause of all depression.

Are we to think that depression did not exist in the Soviet Union? Or perhaps in the mercantilist kingdoms of the colonial era? Or perhaps not in the Roman Empire? Or what about ancient China or India?

There’s some irony in saying “capitalist realism tries to fool us that this is all there could ever be,” when the article itself is declaring that capitalism (or any -ism) can only be some kind of evil force which naturally causes depression.

It doesn’t read to me like a thoughtful scientific article, but like a religious text decrying another religion.

I find the real world is not nearly so black and white. Certainly the “capitalism” as practiced in the United States is far different than that practiced in Norway, as well as the statist system in practice in Cuba and currently falling apart in Venezuela.

It’s hard for me to see this author as doing anything other than taking a victim mentality and trying to prescribe it for everyone else, laying Universal blanket blame on the authors preferred heresy.

Yes, I saw that after another commenter pointed me toward the guidelines. I would delete the parent comment, but then I wouldn’t get to offer an apology. Thanks for flagging this to me.

@mattrp, looks like we’re at the max thread depth. Thanks for your comment.

I certainly don’t mean to say people should shed their ideas, or that we should be starlings that flock together.

But I do think it’s important to see humanity as one species, one people, who have most things in common and thrive by working together constructively.

That’s why I feel it’s important to seek to understand the people who see the world differently than you, rather than just exist in blind opposition to them.

When we let our ideology define who we are it becomes a religion, and world history has plenty of examples of people taking religious ideology as a reason to blindly oppose and eventually wage literal war on “the other.”

Meanwhile, healthy mutual tolerance comes from seeking to understand and then arranging life in such a way that each person can have their own ideas and worldview without needing to quash the others.

To me that feels like just a description of liberal philosophy, so it’s surprising I most often have this conversation with friends leaning far left who are so angry they are thinking more in terms of how to wage a war than how to find a workable mutual tolerance.

Well, I re-read the guidelines, and I have to admit they do say to reply but don’t specifically say not to downvote. Not sure where I got the idea that was one of the rules.

I see it also says don’t comment on votes, which I hadn’t noticed before. I would go back and delete that comment but then your reply would make no sense, so oh well.

Thank you for posting your explanation and helping set me straight on HN etiquette, I appreciate it!

I think actually, knowing your perception of the world is not correct is the really hard part, because then you can’t just go through your day comfortably, you have a constant mental struggle against a faulty autopilot.

Imagine driving a car with misaligned steering that pulls sharply to one side. You could do it, but it would get tiring, and it would feel dangerous to go on a long road trip because if you lost focus for a minute you could crash.

My own experience with mental health issues is that it feels about like that.