The real world kinda sucks. If you’re excited about leaving the blissful world of college to cage yourself up in a cubicle and process widgets all day while some douchebag named Bill micromanages every shit you take, then your brain chemicals are out of balance. I worked in the finance industry for five years but sucked at it because I knew like two Excel formulas and let my own bank account dip into the red constantly because I have zero money management skills. Also, going to work was like mandatory, which was a complete smack in the face for a dude who went to 14% of his classes in college and exchanged weed for the class notes right before the exam.
And living in the greatest country in the world (#Merica) has its pitfalls, as Americans work longer than any other country in the industrialized world. When I studied abroad in Spain, I couldn’t go walk down the street without seeing city workers napping in their trucks and the bars packed on a Tuesday afternoon for some meaningless soccer rerun.
But one awesome dude is here to buck the brutal trend of Americans feeling trapped in an inescapable world of working their lives away. His name is Bart Lorang and he’s head honcho at FullContact, a Dever-based tech company.
Lorang has implemented a “paid paid vacation” model, buying each of his 60+ employees a vacation every year, on top of the 15 vacation days allotted per year. The vacation allowance: $7,500. So we’re not talking about a long weekend in Cleveland, we’re talking about wherever the fuck you want to go. And to make it even better, he only pays for vacation under the condition that employees don’t have any contact with the outside world while they’re away, including all work related activities.
Lorang began this initiative back in 2012 and claims it has been wildly successful for business. He’s indicated that workers not only come back enthused and rejuvenated but it avoids a common phenomenon in the tech industry dubbed ‘hero syndrome,’ which is when employees want to be the only ones who can do their job under the impression that their value increases. Avoiding this allows for information to be shared more readily, which in turn leads to a widespread empowering of FullContact’s entire workforce.
Lorang told Business Insider,
“If people know they will be disconnecting and going off the grid for an extended period of time, they might actually keep that in mind as they help build the company.”
If I wasn’t completely content with being a useless, lazy blogger, I would throw in my resume today. Bart Lorang is a dude I’d follow into battle.
[H/T LADbible]