Adobe – “It's a great job, but it used to be better.”

"Fellow Adobian" sounds like an HR shill. Every time HR talked about the new (improved they called it) vacation policy they told us how awesome it was that everybody would all be off at the same time - the 4th of July shut down week. It's a completely useless vacation time for just about everybody. They lied to the employees last year to encourage them to use up accrued vacation time to help the company. The real reason was to minimize the payouts to employees when they axed guaranteed time off and vacation accrual.

The sick days are irrelevant as far as vacation goes - you might as well count time for lunch and say that it gives the employees 2 weeks a years in little 1/2 hour chunks.

The 2-3 weeks of almost real vacation is not guaranteed but only on the whim of your manager. The sabbatical is a nice illusory carrot to hold out for employees. The average Adobe employee has been with the company for less than 5 years and will never see a sabbatical.

The new vacation policy is totally whacked and the HR rep even admitted so during my exit interview when I told them that the vacation change was the final straw in making my decision to move on. I was one of those who beat the odds and actually collected on the sabbatical policy but I now get more real vacation time as a new employee at my new job that I did as a multi-year veteran at Adobe and my vacation time will continue to increase.