Holiday/Vacation Days in IB

How did you guys use your vacation days during your first and second year? Have 14 days (obv won’t use them all) and they expire and won’t carry over. If I don’t want to work on Christmas, I have to use a day. Same as thanksgiving. How should I go about this? Want to be a team player but want to spend Christmas with my family (WFH so not sure how to handle) 

21 Comments
 

My first two years I took only 4 days: 2 after a conference abroad (a lot of us went and my MD took a holiday as well), and one per year for the day after Thanksgiving. 

It's all about communicating and making sure you're not screwing your team. The two days were after a month of madness, plus not having my MD in the office was a gift from God. I let my VP & MD know weeks ahead of time and they were actually happy that I was taking time for myself. The days after Thanksgiving are quiet on our side anyway, so no one is really missed.

Don't walk away in the middle of an active deal, and be sure to keep your phone on in case something major comes up. If you communicated right, and your team isn't full of maniacs, you'll be just fine.

 

A lot of firms require analysts to take protected vacations, no? You’re a commutable resource as an analyst and not crucial to any process. Another analyst can just cover for you. The week of Thanksgiving and two weeks around Christmas are pretty dead. We weren’t expected to be in the office or login unless we had something to do. This wasn’t counted as vacation and the majority of analysts had it pretty relaxed. This is in a really busy group also. 

 

Worked at upper MM. First year wasn't great, but second year was a lot better. Was able to take my mandated week off, as well as about 1.5 weeks "working remotely" during Christmas. 

 

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