Stingy company only gives employees 5 days of vacation a year for their first 3 years of employment, gives 12 vacation days after 10+ years: 'This has to be the worst employee vacation plan I have ever seen.'

The vacation time doesn't even carry over to the following year.

Vacation time is a precious thing. You shouldn't have to spend every weekday at work for the rest of your life just because you have a job. We all need a little break sometimes, and often a three-day weekend won't cut it. 

We all have different standards for what constitutes a good or a bad vacation policy. Take Unlimited Vacation Time, for instance. Some might see this as the only ethical way to give employees vacation time, because, in theory, it rejects the premise that your job should have any say in when or how much you go on vacation. In practice, employees with unlimited vacation often take less time off than those with finite vacation time, because they feel guilty about taking it and fear exploiting the generous policy. Also, employers can be more stingy when there isn't a clear number of days available for an employee to take off. 

If you abandon the premise of unlimited vacation altogether, you're left trying to find the perfect number of days an employee can take off. Is two weeks of PTO per year sufficient? How about three? All I know for sure is that 5 days doesn't quite cut it in most modern workplaces.