As San Francisco’s tech crunch rampantly intensifies, the balance of power between potential hires and available positions is slowly shifting, with companies like Google offering the flabbergasting perks we’ve been hearing all about for the last few years to attract the best and brightest away from their competitors. The newest attempt at assuaging the transition from unemployed code monkey to hoighty-toighty software developer is two weeks paid vacation … before the new hire even starts their first day. At least two companies are offering this “pre-cation” perk, San Francisco's 42Floors, a real estate search engine, and Atlassian, an Australian enterprise software company. However, there is something decidedly gimmicky about the deal, as Atlassian already doesn’t track vacation days, and 42Floors CEO Jason Freedman told Slate, “It's like, 'Yeah, have a great time! And when you get back here, work your ass off.’”
The culture of tech (and now tech related) jobs is such that employees are expected to put work at the top of the priority list. Despite having unlimited vacation days, Atlassian says their employees don’t seem to take more days than they did before the policy was instated. The notion of a bottomless work ethic is regularly seen in the most competitive fields, but can easily destroy the ability to enjoy the work; thus explaining the attempts by companies to keep the hardcore ethic from cannibalizing jobs and burning out employees just a few years into their new gigs.
Valleywag also points out that the insane hours standardly expected from new hires only contributes to the rampant age-discrimination inherent in Silicon Valley. While a recent graduate in their early 20s might be able to stay up until 5 a.m., fueled exclusively by energy drinks and stale pizza, the same cannot be expected of a 40-something software engineer with a wife, kids, and acid reflux. As referenced in the New Republic, the careers page of an I.T. services company stated, “We Want People Who Have Their Best Work Ahead of Them, Not Behind Them.”
Clearly, a pre-cation is not the solution to the self-sacrifice necessary to succeed in high pressure industries — in fact, it could be making it worse as a future employee could feel like they owe something to the company before they even start. According to the 42Floors CEO via Slate, this new trend has only boosted their bottom line, and the realistic reason is the increase in efforts by their employees. Being stoked about cool benefits is no replacement for a good night’s sleep or a family, though.
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