kryzak wrote:
RVD, you have a point there, but like NC, I believe in the motto that, "if the company or project team cannot go on if you get hit by a bus tomorrow, then that team is to blame."
I really disagree with the "overworking ethic" in the US, where people are made to feel "bad" about taking any vacation off (even at a defense/aerospace company) and that their goal in life is to dedicate themselves to the company. I do understand that sometimes you have the responsibility to get a project through and ditching it at the last second is probably bad for your fellow team members, but in Avi's case, he requested the vacation months in advance, was NOT on a special project team where they will fail without him, and they were pretty much putting him in a difficult position on purpose. I think the managers were just being unreasonable in this case.
There's a time and place for canceling or shortening vacations, but I am inherently against the whole "working like a slave" culture that mgmt consulting and IBanking companies have. It's just not right.
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you don't take this kind of job if you want to have your own personal time. you work at mcdonald's if you want to show up to work late, take time off, etc.
maybe you don't mean to be offensive, but this was getting a bit borderline. Just letting you know.
my point with the example was that there's a difference in expectation between a $100k job and a $500k jobs and a $1M job and a $8/hr job. obviously, this situation with avi is one real world example. but hypothetically, if you found out that avi gets paid $1M/year for his job, would your opinion of the situation change at all? would you say "dude, for ONE MILLION DOLLARS PER YEAR, SUCK IT UP!" or would you still have the opinion of "they should be able to absorb your time off since it was brought up way in advance".
most of us are going to business school soon. would it be ok to take 2 weeks or a month off during the school year? would your professors and administrators understand? of course not. missing one or two classes is probably fine but anything more than that is tough. would you be ok if your professor said he wanted to go on vacation for 2 weeks so he won't be able to teach your class? professors have vacation time too right? they would all tell you that you have to take time off during the scheduled breaks. unfortunately the reality is that for many high paying high stress jobs, there really aren't any long terms breaks. look at the hours that most CEOs of large corporations work...there aren't a lot of vacations there. if you look at the top level executives of most fortune 50 companies, i can tell you that most of those executives are not taking 2 week vacations in one stretch. do you think these companies are poorly planned because they can't handle it? a few companies shut down for a week (the week after christmas) but that's about all i've ever heard of in terms of companies really shutting down.
anyway, i know this sounds a bit harsh but i'm not talking about the mentality of a consultant or senior consultant at a big 4 firm. for those people, of course it makes a lot of sense that you should be able to go on vacation since it's your right. but if you're going to have the responsibility of a senior manager or managing director, your vacations are in 1-2 day spurts mixed in with weekends to get your 2 weeks/year (if you're lucky).
i've been there when my managing director asked me to cancel family vacations that i had planned for many months. i've been there when my parents flew in from korea and we had vacation planned while they are here but i've had to cancel because i had to work. no doubt it really does suck and i disagreed with those decisions. my decision at the time was to stay or quit...i had every right to do so. and no, i don't think it's right. but i'm simply providing some insight into the reality of the other side in these situations.
and yeah, CA labor laws say that "use it or lose it" type vacation policies are illegal so the original poster can pursue it if he/she wishes. i can almost guarantee you that he'll win or the company will just settle because they don't want to deal with the hassle. you will likely burn some bridges though if the industry is not that big.
RVD.