My momentous decision in the last 6 hours.

yeah, a few weeks ago I was treated with similar disrespect, but good thing my reporting manager fully supported me, so I just told him I do not want to work for the other manager, ever again.

i know i'm in the minority here but a few points...and if anything, i tell it like it is so i hope you're not offended.

1) a 2 week vacation is really long. i know a lot of my Indian friends would go to India and they all seemed to go for a month but that was simply absurd when it came to the success of a project. even 2 weeks is a really long time to be gone. even in big 4 consulting, if you have a major and important role, you really can't be away from the project for more than a few days or the project really does suffer. of course, if you're really low in the project hierarchy and you don't really do anything, then maybe the project won't suffer but if that's the case, you probably shouldn't be on the project anyway. i've never believed in getting more people on the project just to get more billable hours and money from the client...this is gouging the client and i've never done it.

i have never asked an employee to cancel a vacation once made. but many times i have asked that the employee shorten the vacation. if your friend's wedding in Japan is so important to you, then you should go to his wedding in Japan. but if his wedding is on a saturday, fly out on thursday night, go to the wedding on saturday, and fly back on sunday morning. your friend is probably going to leave for his honeymoon anyway and you'll only miss friday (sunday flights from japan arrive in the US on sunday).

think about it this way...if you were looking for some contractors to get an additional bedroom constructed in your house and you want to upgrade all of your bathrooms., would you pick the guy who says "i'm good but i'm going on vacation for 2 weeks because at my last contracts i worked really hard and so i deserve it?" you'd say "ba fangu!l", have fun on your vacation buddy....but i'm going with the guy who says he'll be here every day working like a slave from 7am-10pm until the project gets done.

2) of course you work in order to play. everyone does this. but there really is a time and a place for work and a time and a place for play. if you take a job with mckindsey or BCG, most of my friends live at work. they show up by 8am and they regularly don't leave until past 11pm. this isn't mon-fri...this is sun-sun...every single day of the week. it's hard to get a day off even if it's a weekend let alone take a vacation. the last time i was in korea, i called up a friend to try to get together for lunch or dinner. he basically said "sorry but things really are busy. we work through lunch and dinner every day and i don't get home until midnight. we can go grab a drink if you want to at that time" but i didn't feel like bothering him. if you asked for a 2 week vacation, they would laugh in your face and think you're joking. 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.

3) the US is a free country. the employer is free to fire you at any time and you're free to leave. if you don't like the job and what your employers are telling you to do, leave....just like you did. i have absolutely no problem with an employee quitting or leaving...it is 100% their right to do so. but when i have to fire an employee because they just don't have the skills or the desire to do the work that i am paying them to do, all of a sudden, i'm the bad guy. when an employee leaves because they don't like the job, i'm the bad guy. i've had guys paid $150k/year leave because i wouldn't let them work from home for 3 days a week. i've had a $100k/year guy leave because he wanted to stay at home all day and not come to the office because "the servers are at the data center so i should work close to the data center"...unbelievable.

i've worked in big 4 consulting for over 8 years and i've been an engagement manager for some large clients. what do you think the client says when i tell them that we can't get the project done on time because one of the guys is going on vacation for 2 weeks....trust me when i tell you that the client does not care. consulting really isn't the right industry to be in if you want a lot of personal time (or if you refuse to travel btw).

RVD.

Wow, good read. Good luck.

RVD, honestly, I have never seen a project that cant tolerate someone's 2-week vacation, especially when it has been already planned and approved. If project leadership cannot build a back-up to handle these kinds of things, then I would really blame them rather than an employee. I would argue that the next time you did force someone to shorten their vacation, you should see how productive he/she is during the period they are in office rather than vacationing. I can safely bet that in every single instance, their productivity will be very low. And not just that, he/she will vent their frustration with other colleagues and the situation can quickly and very silently kill any respect that you command with your team. Some managers I have seen, dont seem to mind this. Personally, I would rather have my employee on my side by giving a little leeway rather than trying to pin him/her down in a place that they'd rather not be. I guess this is what they call "management style". To each, his own.

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.



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.

i'm usually pretty nice about it. if a guy wants to take 2 weeks off, i usually explain the situation and see if they can shorten it to 1 week, etc.

the one thing that i have seen pretty much 100% is that after a colleague gets back from a 2 week vacation, it takes them about 3 days or so to get back into work mode. it's tough to focus on work after you've been out for so long.

i've taken 2 week vacations before. the last time i did was when i got married (wedding + honeymoon). it was tough and my employer at the time let me do it. i had a pretty important role in the project so it did suffer but i did make sure that i was able to check email, etc. every day except for the 4 days that i was on my honeymoon.

RVD.

RVD,
Since you dug up the topic after such a long time, you will see that I had mentioned (I guess I did, if not I apologize before half), that I told them I could reduce my holidays.
What infuriated me was they told me point blank they would not let me go to Mexico to get my H1 B visa stamped. THat reeked of BS...As kryzak and NC mentioned, I made all the arrangements months ago..... arrangements cost time and money..

While I　understand youu logic, on my half.. I also mentioned that I was not put on any project... not a single one. so I was already unassigned and I asked for 2 weeks leave... so tell me.. if you have one employee who you are not assigning to jobs, what productvitiy can you expect out of him/her...

secondly, I may not have the experience, but I have seen tons of people from staff to senior management take month long vacations at least here in the west coast. It is kind of a unwritten rule to go on atleast 2 weeks holiday in my ex-firm. Frankly, my mentality may be different. But that does not mean I slack off... when its time to work, I get the work done....

As kryzak said, a team that cannot get the job done coz one of the employees is missing is not a well planned team.. Rule 1 in team work.. hope for the best, prepare for the worst....I have worked in projects where we needed 6 people but only had 3 available... we got the projects finished on time, coz we anticipated the situation...

RVD- I dont agree with your logic that the higher paid guys should not take vacation/work harder than the guys paid less. I expect the higher paid guys and the senior management to make bigger strategic and impactful decisions and be held more responsible for the performance of their company/group. But if they are able to manage all this even with a two- week vacation, so be it. In most companies, the higher you go, the more vacation time is AVAILABLE to the employee (I am not sure about IB/MC). I understand the concerns that us internationals have- I did take a month off when I got married or I end up taking a few weeks off when I do go to India. To some extent, thats the downside of hiring internationals. But then I rarely take a day off other than my trips to India. I personally find it easier to transition things when I am off for a single stretch of time rather than take every other Friday off like the rest of my American friends do.

Anyways- each to his own...

speaking of slavery: Seriously, I have a few friends in MC, also with the Big 3 (BTW: Who is no.4?) and yes, some of them work a few hours over the weekend, but that 8-11pm throughout the weekends. this is insane, how can you be productive for a longer period of time if you dont get time to breath?

RVD, I will have to respectfully disagree. Even CEO's deserve time off if it's planned well ahead of time, given a lot of notice, and a plan is in place to keep the company running, NO MATTER how much they earn. Exec VPs (think head of companies in terms of their responsibility) at my company take 1-2 weeks off here and there with no glitch at all in the company. Deputies and others will take over for the 1-2 weeks they're off.

In my humble opinion, working that hard and not taking any time off is very unhealthy for the worker involved. Some people love that environment (more power to them), but for most people, productivity will drop after a while (I know for me it does) if you keep on holding to that schedule. I personally am vehemently opposed to companies that work their employees that way and would NEVER work for anyone who expected that of me. Does that mean I'm irresponsible or a slacker? I don't think it does.

Again, you are ignoring the fact that I am not proposing that people ditch their work on a whim or be irresponsible and leave their team hanging (like taking 2 weeks off while in b-school), but I'm saying if you planned a 2 week vacation during a break in school, and your professor, who knew about this plan, all of a sudden gave you an extra project during that break and told you to reduce your break or cancel it altogether, would that be acceptable? I do not think it would be.

Of course, this is just a matter of opinion and people will argue this forever, but I will have to say that I think I'm a very responsible person and will get a lot done in the time I have to work. If a company or manager cannot accept that and forces me to cancel my vacations, then it's a loss to that company, not to me.

ok cool, we'll just agree to disagree on this one.

you guys don't know the worst of it. i worked at a place where my boss wouldn't let us take real lunch breaks. the rule basically was that you had to get food delivered or buy it in the building downstairs and you had to work through lunch every day. i like taking a short break in the middle of the day and this was by far worse than any vacation plans that i had to shorten. dinner was the same thing (we all had dinner in the office every day because no one left until 9pm at the earliest).

i'll admit that a lot of it had to do with the personality of my managing director but when you're in consulting and you're out of town, their logic was that you're just gonna go back to the hotel anyway (it's not like you'll be with your family) so we were worked pretty much like slaves.

RVD.

RVD, don't get me wrong, I can see and understand where you're coming from and definitely know a few friends who are working in those situations. It's a tough environment and I really think it'll tear a person apart after a few years (kind of like how IBankers burn out after a few years, most of them anyways ). More kudos to you and those who can stick it out!

I do hope that you will end up at the b-school of your dreams so you can pick a job where you will get some personal freedom to do what you want to do (while still being responsible to your team/company). Keep in touch and let us know how you do!

K.

kry, RVD already landed an admit at the Wharton EMBA program.

Even better for RVD! Good for you (RVD)!

(sorry, been so busy outside and inside of work these days, I'm really losing track of all the details here... barely have time to read through some of the threads, haha)

no problem. have you finally decided to go to haas?

RVD.

nope, still waiting on Anderson's fellowship offer (if I get any) and Kellogg's decision. Then I ask the hard questions, go to the admit weekends, and make my decision.