Oh, deer hunting season... when half my team is already on v̶a̶c̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ strike.

I'm already taking the next week for v̶a̶c̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ strike... and two weeks in December too!

And what's more... I'm getting paid for this v̶a̶c̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ strike.

I haven't put the requests in properly - I should do that. I still have 252 hours of v̶a̶c̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ strike time that I need to use in the next two months (or move to other places... some carry over to next year, some moved to the sabbatical time account).

Some of the "you have how much vacation?" is because I am part of a union. Though I'll note that the union also has a "no strike" clause that would prevent me from actually participating in an unauthorized strike (such as this one).

The software that I work on is the boring "line of business" type things for keeping the internals of the organization moving smoothly. No advertising, no dark patterns, no social media (unless you count the internal department message board).

Random techies taking a week (or more) of PTO in November is expected and entire teams moving to a skeleton crew for periods of time in November is something that is already planned for. This is even less impactful if it's scattered across companies.

While my workplace sounds like your ideal, I probably make 1/3 to 1/4 of what my peers do (if I had stayed in working at a company where tech is the revenue generating faucet). Many people have baulked when they see the pay range for the position and the corresponding impact that that would have on their lifestyle.

If you want to protest these things at your employer, start a union at your employer. Here are the steps: https://www.nlrb.gov/sites/default/files/attachments/pages/n...