Michael Williams asked the MACHINIST group a pretty simple question:

The post reached more than 30,000 people and pulled in 483 comments.

Which means it took approximately four minutes for a question about vacation time to turn into an international healthcare debate, a generational fistfight and several shop owners reminding everyone that they haven’t taken a day off since 1997.

So…a normal day in the MACHINIST group.

There wasn’t anything close to a unanimous answer, but three weeks seemed to come up more than anything else.

And plenty of machinists said it should be available immediately—or at least after the first 90 days.

That last part matters.

Experienced machinists aren’t entering the workforce for the first time. Many already have three, four or five weeks of vacation at their current shop.

Asking someone with 10 or 20 years of experience to change jobs and start over at five days isn’t much of a recruiting pitch.

One machinist put it pretty clearly:

Hard to argue with that.

A few extra dollars per hour doesn’t mean much if you have to give up family vacations, hunting season and every long weekend for the next three years.

One commenter said 33 days was the norm.

Naturally, an American immediately responded:

Then someone asked the obvious question:

The answer was the UK and EU.

And that’s when the thread briefly stopped being about PTO and became a debate about taxes, healthcare and whether America is actually the greatest country in the world.

The European machinists casually mentioned getting somewhere around 28 to 33 paid days off.

The Americans reacted like they had just been told every shop overseas also provides free carbide, air conditioning and a personal assistant to deburr parts.

A machinist from Germany said he gets 30 paid vacation days.

Thanks for rubbing it in.

Not everyone thought three weeks should be the starting point.

Several machinists described the more traditional shop progression:

One commenter said:

Which probably tells us something.

If your PTO policy hasn’t changed since the ’70s, that isn’t necessarily proof that it’s a good policy.

It might just mean nobody has looked at the employee handbook in 50 years.

Still, plenty of people defended the idea that PTO should be earned through years of service. Their argument was that additional vacation rewards loyalty and gives employees a reason to stay.

There’s some logic to that.

But there’s also a big difference between rewarding longevity with more PTO and making an experienced machinist survive on five days for the first three years.

A few shop owners and managers explained why they don’t love front-loading vacation.

You can hire someone, give them three weeks immediately, and then discover two months later that their résumé was mostly creative writing.

Or they take all three weeks and quit.

One person involved in hiring said that, out of every 35 to 50 employees hired, only a handful end up being as good as they claimed.

Another former business owner said he waited six months before providing PTO because:

Fair point.

Front-loaded PTO can create financial and administrative headaches when an employee leaves early. Accruing time throughout the year protects the employer.

But this is where the recruiting problem begins.

Good machinists usually aren’t desperate for work. They already have jobs, benefits and accumulated vacation.

If you want one of them to leave, you have to give them a reason.

Telling a machinist with 15 years of experience that they must “prove themselves” for a year before receiving two weeks of vacation probably isn’t going to do it.

As one commenter said:

A little aggressive?

Sure.

Wrong?

Not really.

Michael later explained why he asked the question.

He has 12 years in the trade and currently receives five total days off—including sick time—until he reaches three years with the company.

The shop previously had three machinists on second shift.

The other two quit.

For roughly eight months, Michael has been working 65 to 70 hours per week while covering his own responsibilities, picking up the work left behind by the other machinists and helping operators.

When he asked management whether they planned to hire anyone else, the response was basically:

The checks are good.

But outside of Sundays, he has almost no life.

That’s an important distinction.

Burnout isn’t always caused by machining.

It’s often caused by understaffing, constant overtime, poor management and being rewarded for doing three jobs by permanently receiving three jobs.

Several commenters told Michael that real machinists don’t burn out.

Others suggested that anyone who needs time away from work should find another career.

But one comment captured the other side perfectly:

That one probably won’t appear in an HR presentation anytime soon.

But the point stands.

Working yourself into the ground isn’t automatically a sign of toughness. Sometimes it just means your employer successfully convinced you that chronic understaffing is a personality trait.

A few machinists offered more ambitious solutions.

One suggested six months of PTO.

Someone improved the proposal:

Another preferred an 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. shift with an hour lunch and two paid 15-minute tea breaks.

Shop owners were also reminded that they can take unlimited PTO whenever they want.

That suggestion was quickly corrected:

The compromise?

And, of course, several people asked why a machinist would need a power take-off.

There’s always one.

Actually, there were several.

Based on the thread, three weeks to start—plus paid holidays and separate sick time—feels like a reasonable minimum for an experienced machinist.

More importantly, shops should consider matching the PTO someone has already earned elsewhere.

A machinist with 15 years in the trade shouldn’t necessarily be treated like someone starting their first job just because they changed employers.

But PTO alone won’t fix burnout.

If one machinist taking a Friday off causes production to collapse, the problem probably isn’t the PTO policy.

It’s staffing.

It’s management.

It’s the expectation that the reliable person will continue absorbing more work because they’ve proven they can handle it.

Good machinists have options.

Shops competing for them should treat PTO as part of the recruiting package—not as a gold watch you receive after sacrificing 20 years of your life.

So, what do you think?

Is three weeks enough?

Should PTO be front-loaded or earned throughout the year?

Or should we move directly to six months, twice a year?

Donnie Carr owned a machine shop for seven years and worked as a sales engineer for Mazak and C.R. Onsrud before starting Pappy Tool & Machine Co. He supplies small shops, startups and growing operations across the US and Canada.

He carries one brand per category, which means real product knowledge instead of a catalog: carbide end mills, coolant, way oil, hydraulic oil, bandsaw blades and oil skimmers. He also handles JLH bandsaws, new CNC saws and used CNC equipment.

If you have ever felt like the support dried up after the second sales call, call him. He will tell you straight whether he has the right product for your application.

Donnie Carr, Pappy Tool & Machine Co.
256-572-7110   |   [email protected]   |   pappytool.com