At my current salt rationer, sorry salary slavemonger, sorry, employer of choice, they do give each employee a set number of days each year. The employee can request to use some/all of those days throughout the year, but, the manager has to approve, and can veto requests. Last year our team lost most of their holiday due to management ineptitude and gross fuckwittery in terms of project management and death-marched delivery plans.
This year, the team, collectively have told the dates and taken it, and basically told management to go swing. If they take action against us taking some holiday, we all resign. Has worked so far.
To be fair, not sure Rails Gurus have time to eat Hula Hoops, or any snacks from the UK - they are too busy trying to patch the security hole de-jour courtesy of the Fails Framework.
It has been heartening to read so many of the comments here pointing how absurd web development has become with the endlessly more rigid frameworks prescribing their world view onto the developer, effectively reducing them to module install muppets, rather than empowered developers.
This year, the team, collectively have told the dates and taken it, and basically told management to go swing. If they take action against us taking some holiday, we all resign. Has worked so far.