<story><title>Why is America the &apos;no-vacation nation&apos;?</title><url>http://www.cnn.com/2011/TRAVEL/05/23/vacation.in.america/index.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>k3dz</author><text>you can do that only if you are a senior dev.. what do junior devs, recent college grads do?</text></item><item><author>joss82</author><text>Here it is, and it&apos;s awesome:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.expatsoftware.com/articles/2007/02/two-weeks-vacation-is-only.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.expatsoftware.com/articles/2007/02/two-weeks-vaca...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>leftnode</author><text>There is a good article from another software developer around here who told his boss he was taking a 3 month vacation. He made the point the business needed him more than he needed it; he was a competent developer and could easily get work, didn&apos;t have any living/large financial dependencies. At first I thought it was absurd, but the more I thought about it, he was absolutely correct.&lt;p&gt;Take a long vacation some time. Even if you do have a family, save up enough money and go travel for a while. Take some decent time off work (4+ weeks). Let them fire you if they want. That&apos;s (one of my) my goal(s) over the next 2 years: take an extended vacation (I haven&apos;t taken more than a week off since I graduated college).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dmm</author><text>Live on less than half of your net(take-home) pay and save the rest. Now for every month that you work, you are also saving a month&apos;s worth of living expenses. After two years of this you have two years of fuck you money. Two years is enough time to learn python or something else significant.&lt;p&gt;Your savings can last even longer if you get a $10/hr job such as waiting tables part-time.&lt;p&gt;Work daily on developing marketable skills. Work daily on communicating how your work impacts the business you&apos;re in. Imagine your boss asks you tomorrow, &quot;Why shouldn&apos;t I fire you right now?&quot;. What would you say?&lt;p&gt;Always have a resume prepared.&lt;p&gt;Once you have done this you can go up to your boss and tell her you are taking two months off and you won&apos;t care what she says in reply.</text></comment>
<story><title>Why is America the &apos;no-vacation nation&apos;?</title><url>http://www.cnn.com/2011/TRAVEL/05/23/vacation.in.america/index.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>k3dz</author><text>you can do that only if you are a senior dev.. what do junior devs, recent college grads do?</text></item><item><author>joss82</author><text>Here it is, and it&apos;s awesome:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.expatsoftware.com/articles/2007/02/two-weeks-vacation-is-only.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.expatsoftware.com/articles/2007/02/two-weeks-vaca...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>leftnode</author><text>There is a good article from another software developer around here who told his boss he was taking a 3 month vacation. He made the point the business needed him more than he needed it; he was a competent developer and could easily get work, didn&apos;t have any living/large financial dependencies. At first I thought it was absurd, but the more I thought about it, he was absolutely correct.&lt;p&gt;Take a long vacation some time. Even if you do have a family, save up enough money and go travel for a while. Take some decent time off work (4+ weeks). Let them fire you if they want. That&apos;s (one of my) my goal(s) over the next 2 years: take an extended vacation (I haven&apos;t taken more than a week off since I graduated college).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>enjo</author><text>There is no point in your life that you can more easily take 3 months off to do whatever you want than when you are a &quot;recent college grad&quot;.&lt;p&gt;My &lt;i&gt;biggest&lt;/i&gt; life regret was not realizing this at the time. I jumped into the workforce and pursued my career at 95 mph.&lt;p&gt;I should have spent a year travelling.</text></comment>