Ask this job interview question to find out if a company supports taking PTO [Video]

It can be hard to figure out whether a prospective employer really supports work-life balance — until it’s too late.

That’s what happened to Meredith Simmons, a marketing specialist who once took a job with a company that offered unlimited paid time off.

She quickly learned that the policy wasn’t as flexible as she expected. According to an interview with NPR’s show “The Indicator from Planet Money,” Simmons was hired as a remote worker and later asked to relocate to its Indiana office. She took a few days off for the drive, but was interrupted en route when her boss told her she needed to join a meeting immediately, “even though I was only off for five or six days.”

In another instance, Simmons didn’t feel comfortable requesting time off after her mother-in-law died, so she fielded coworker messages during the funeral. “That’s actually what made me think about leaving that company, and I did six months later because it was just like, I’m …