I found an interesting article a few weeks ago over at Expat Software discussing how 2 weeks vacation time is simply what your employer will pay you for, but not what you are limited to. If you’re willing, taking an unpaid vacation is always an option. If you play it right.

As a business owner, I want someone to LOVE working for me. I’d give (do give) my employees every benefit possible. Making that extra $200 or $2000 dollars just so my employee is miserable is no way to go. So that said, I’d completely respect someone taking time to pursue something they felt is worthwhile, so long as they don’t leave the company at a major loss. There’s simply a balance to be made — one that larger companies without a startup mentality might never come to see.

But that luxury comes at a price. You have to be respectful of the company you work for. Time away isn’t simply time you aren’t being productive on whatever project it was you were working on. Even if it’s unpaid, you’re still receiving health, dental, vision, 401k, and other benefits. That’s when things start becoming a little less fair to your employer, so be mindful and respectful of the costs of simply having an employee — we’re not just paying your salary.

A local design firm, Vitamin, who used to be housed in the building where we started Fusion Bay, wrote an interesting post on their blog yesterday:

At the end of the day, Eisner did whatever it needed to do in order to maintain its precious public perception until the very end. People, families and compassion took a back seat to it all. Eisner not only compromised its integrity and the integrity of its owners, it compromised good business ethics. More importantly, Eisner compromised human decency.

I can’t agree more.

I’m sure we’ll go into detail about our interactions with Eisner Communications at some point in time, however today is not the day that I’ll divulge details and lessons learned.

Click to view “Another one bites the dust” »