Title: Dear startup employer,<p>It&#x27;s a workday, but I&#x27;m not at work. I&#x27;m pretending to work from home. Company policy says I should file for PTO, but I won&#x27;t. You&#x27;ll never know; I&#x27;ll feel guilty.<p>But I need this day. You took a lot from me. I didn&#x27;t hesitate for a second when I dropped all my weekend plans and rushed to fix what was broken. I worked all weekend, late into the night. I was there first thing Monday morning, and again on Tuesday. Then I stayed up all night Tuesday because it was release night.<p>I didn&#x27;t do any of this because you pay me to. I did it because I take pride in my work. Things were broken. I&#x27;m responsible for them.<p>Now I&#x27;m taking time to eat a meal. I&#x27;m having the day I should have had last weekend. I&#x27;m breathing. The stress is ebbing away. I&#x27;m recharging so I can do great work for you again tomorrow.<p>Startup employer, I need this day so I can be awesome for you. But you want to take this day from my PTO, and that&#x27;s just not right. You took my whole weekend. You took dinner with my spouse. You took a whole night of sleep and I came to the office anyway, because my coworkers depend on me. I&#x27;ll never complain about these things because I&#x27;m an internet engineer and this is my job. If it&#x27;s down, I&#x27;m up, no questions asked. In the morning we&#x27;ll do the post-mortem work to see how to make it better.<p>Startup employer, we need to talk about our vacation policy. I wish you&#x27;d read this article about Netflix: &lt;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hbr.org&#x2F;2014&#x2F;01&#x2F;how-netflix-reinvented-hr&#x2F;ar&#x2F;1&gt;. Please read it, because when I read it, I want to send them my resume. I love the idea that we can be honest and reasonable with each other about my time. I&#x27;m flexible for you. Why can&#x27;t you be flexible for me?<p>Startup employer, please stop tracking my PTO. There&#x27;s a lot of other things in that Netflix doc I&#x27;d like to talk to you about but let&#x27;s take this first baby step together.<p>We can do this. We&#x27;ll both be better for it.<p>-exhausted tech worker
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