I was talking with a few of my American colleagues and they told me an interesting thing. According to them, even if an US company has an official policy of proving generous PTO for their employees, the company culture doesn’t allow the employees to take the days off. i.e. FANG companies “officially” allow 20 days off but unofficially taking all 20 days off is shunned upon. And if you take all 20 days, the management may just lay you off when they need to fire someone.
I view this PTO issue in companies and in our society as a whole as a particular case of the Prisoner’s Dilemma. In the aggregate, it would be optimal for the entire workforce if everyone agreed that they would all take the full 20 PTO days and that nobody would cheat on the agreement. Unfortunately, the reality of corporate politics is very subtle and people are very competitive. If you were looking for a promotion and the other guy in line for one took 10 days while you took 20 days, like it or not, subconsciously or consciously, management will view you as “mailing it in” a little bit more than the other guy.
And so, this generates the confounding culture where people complain a lot about not having enough time off, but where simultaneously no one individual has the stones to take their full allotment.
Once I had kids I started taking all 20. Big difference vs Europe is that it’s frowned upon (at anywhere I have worked) to take big consecutive chunks off. My out of office can’t say – gone in August will respond when I return in September.