Anyone finds it manipulative and disingenuous for partners and directors to actively push you to take vacation due to it being slow. I said no already; I am well rested and will use my vacation when I am exhausted and need to. I do not know why I’ve been asked four times to take PTO. I will book a week's vacation when convenient for me, not when suitable for the firm.

I try to make sure my teams take time away from work - especially when it is slow - to balance the need to push longer hours when we’re slammed.
But realistically it has a lot to do with budgeting too. Sometimes you need staff to take time off for profitability

Surgeons have a saying they learn in residency: eat when you can, sleep when you can, and don’t F with the pancreas. Seems to apply to consulting as well. When my team is running hot, They often put in long hours. If we are slow, my god please take some time back. Is it helpful for the firm to burn down some of that pto liability? Sure it is. Is it a nefarious plot to force you to sleep 8 hours and see your friends and family? Not so much.

I wish I was asked to take PTO. Yes, please!

It's interesting to me that partners have time to care about a single junior team member's vacation time. They all act like they're so strapped for time, is it because they spend it all on stuff like this?

I purposely don’t take vacation when things are slow or around the holidays when everyone else is. Why would I?? That seems really shitty for partners to push you to

would you prefer that they gave you busywork to fill your free time and prevented you from taking PTO when you wanted it? most leaders have been coached to encourage PTO, so the charitable thing to do would be to assume good intentions.

You probably have unlimited PTO days, I do not.

Manipulative or it could help your utilization if vacation is subtracted. Depends on your util calc.

There are a lot of people who always feel pressure to work and fail to take time off. Partners get reports on people maxing their vacation and want to make sure people feel permission to take the time off.

No. Quite the opposite.

It would help your utilization and hence your performance evaluation and raise. It’s a win win situation for you and your firm if you take vacation in lieu of sitting on the bench.

What do you define as slow? Like being billed on a project that isn’t super busy at the moment? Or being in between projects aka bench? The latter makes sense

PTO is a liability for any firm not doing unlimited. They are prob told to tell you to do this

Its def disingenuous if its the same person saying it over and over. You heard them the first time so repeating it tells me theyre not worried about your well being because if they were theyd respect that you dont want to take your leave right now.

If you’re on the bench you don’t charge to PTO to take vacation you charge to general admin Jesus it’s amateur hour in here. Getting all upset for no reason

Maybe it’s best for the engagement bottom line.

No one can force you . Stand your ground.

Yeah it happens all the time so that their metrics look good in that period.

You should always say sorry you have a family related events 6 months from now and you’ll need to save that pto - otherwise they never listen