Taking a day off as an intern

I am an incoming intern in the London office of an international AM firm and was wondering what people's opinions are in general on taking days off as I can see in my internship contract that I do have some pro-rated annual leave. I have been organising an event to take place this summer (which actually looks like it will take place now), and it would be a shame to miss it after I will have spent so much time preparing for it when I would feasibly require just one day off in order to attend it.

TLDR; Can AM interns actually take days off? Or is just some requirement from firms to put that in a contract and is there an implicit stigma against interns actually trying to use them?

 
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I think it depends on a few factors 1)how long your internship is, 2) how many days you can take off/want to take off and 3) how much you want the full time job.

I'm going to assume that you do want a FT job and if you're on a 10 week summer internship I presume you only have 3-4 days available to take off.

4 days is basically a full week and if you're trying to make an impression and convert to FT, missing 1 week out of 10 just puts you at a disadvantage imo. I know its not a long time to miss but frankly that's just time that could be spent making an impression with your team and other interns will have an extra week over you to be remembered.

I took 1 day off on my summer internship to attend my graduation and if yours is a 1 day event, I don't think it should be a problem. What is the nature of the event?

 

Thanks a lot for that info! The internship is indeed 10 weeks and I'm of course looking to convert. It would only be the one day and whilst I can't disclose the exact event without losing my anonymity, it's a large party/festival with unlimited food/drinks and entertainment all night etc. and naturally all organisers get free entry.

 

I think 1 day should be fine and sounds like an event that isn't worth missing haha.

If the internships & event is this summer, I would mention it to HR now saying "would it be possible to take this day off over the internship, I've spent a lot of time organising this event and would mean a lot to me if I could go". Maybe angle it slightly, saying it is important that you attend to help organisation as opposed to wanting to attend to get fully sloshed. Once approved by HR, maybe just mention it to your manager ASAP and offer to catch up on any work that you missed/may miss just to cover all bases.

I highly doubt anyone would object to this as it would just look bad on them and if they're reasonable they'll just let you have the day off without any catch up to do. Once you start the internship make sure your team/manager is aware of your day off from day 1 so there are no surprises. Also a good opportunity to showcase that you aren't a loser and have a life outside of work, so I'm sure they'll be interested to hear the part you played in the organising.

 

Yeah it is this summer and so I'll definitely mention it to HR sooner rather than later. I'll also certainly play the angle of having to attend to help organise aha. Technically I am meant to be there to help organise anyway so more a half-truth than a lie although that's of course not really the incentive to go lol.

I might wait a couple weeks of course just while everything is confirmed — naturally there's a lot of work/confirming to do in lieu of the new 4-step plan — but after talking to HR, assuming I get approval, I'll be sure to bring it up with my team and manager as well.

Thanks a lot for your advice; it's super helpful!

 

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