Started my job 2 yrs ago and have taken no vacay or time off since then bc I had a rough first project and have felt need to prove myself. Have been doing well since but also have had some personal stuff—abnormal pap + biopsy in Nov, rejected from business school in Dec, long-term relationship breakup in Feb, foot surgery in April, loss of close fam friend from covid in May, and now trying to do MBA apps while on a burner case. I feel broken but not sure if this is just normal life stuff that…

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If it hasn’t impacted your performance I wouldn’t say anything. Additionally, you are a professional so you’ll need to learn to use your own vacation time and turn work off so you don’t get burned out. Tell your boss you’ll need to identify a deputy to get up to speed to cover for you bc you haven’t used any vacation time and are approaching burnout. I’d leave it at that

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Agreed. Apologies for the insensitivity 🙇🏼‍♀️ OP, I hope you are doing OK after a rough end of 2020/start of 2021. I hope that you get your deserved promo and that your summer is great and you get to take some much needed time off.

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This is a lot to deal with so regardless of what happens with the promo, just be kind to yourself. After maybe take a week and go to a spa with a girlfriend or two or even on your own and spoil the heck out of yourself.

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I am sorry for the not-too-great series of life events all in a row. Frankly they are normal personal life stuff that most people deal on top of work. You were really unfortunate that all these events concentrated in a short time period putting to test your resilience.

If these events are taking a toll on you, you should take the time off so you can address and process them but also you should just use all your time off to recharge!

As by now you are aware (with 2 years tenure) In consulting is easiest to take time off between cases, or, if you are on long cases (>10 weeks?) is also very doable.

Taking time off on a burner case with little notice while not a deal breaker definitely tests trust. But if you explain what is going on (to the level you are comfortable) and why you need to take time off with little notice, good leaders will understand and won’t make a fuss out of it.

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Main advice is that if you intend to bring this up, there should be a clear ask. The ask might be “I need to take a two month LOA ASAP” or “I’d really like support to join a quieter pro Bono or tier one for a few months in order to get some time back to focus on the things in my personal life.” Telling people “the last twelve months have really been hard on me” is also ok but it doesn’t help people understand what you need unless you ask for it.

But in general, if you have a case break coming up, just plan a long vacation. If the issue is that the current project goes on for a very long time, talk to case leadership about planning a week (or two) of vacation in another month… or even if you need to then make the ask to roll off entirely in a few weeks (give them some time to backfill you).

Final comment would just be… you need to do what you need to do now. But in the future, try to manage things in advance so that it doesn’t come to a breaking point. Much better to take regular vacations or plan an LOA a few months out vs. suddenly one day tell everyone you need a sudden emergency LOA (unless there is a true reason… like a sickness or death in the family, which obviously you couldn’t predict). I know you’ve felt pressure to prove yourself but you have to take care of yourself too.

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OP, I'm a little torn as to what to say.

Firstly, I feel for you. Some of this sounds familiar. I had a rough start and felt obligated to give the firm my all and make it work. It has ultimately worked, but along the way, this job is near impossible if something seismic happens (in my case, relationship ending).

I think AD1's advice is probably right. I just got very direct and frank with work about what *I* needed and MY expectations for how to make this sustainable and things got better for me after that.

I've taken stress leave once, I have boundaries around sleep and exercise, and I have flagged to staffing if there's something external that may be impacting my ability to focus on work.

It's not normal what you're describing, but you don't have to just take the job on the chin.

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Honestly I used to keep all personal things to myself at work bc it felt unprofessional to talk about that stuff to colleagues, but then my dad got sick and I was looking like a crazy person crying at random times in the day with no explanation (that they knew of). Since then I decided to just share things, particularly if they are impacting my work (obvs within reason). I’ve had a really tough mental health year with covid, kept it in for awhile then just said f*ck it, called my boss sobbing, and they immediately had me take 2 weeks off. No one can help you if they don’t know something is wrong.

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people just handle in addition to working. Coming up on a promo in 3 weeks and was planning on staying silent until then but feel like I just can’t anymore. I’ve never once complained or talked about my personal life bc after my first rough case I was told to “keep my head down and show trajectory.” Is this normal stuff though that people just juggle with work? Additionally, not sure if I wait till promo or just bail on my current case to take personal time?

This is not normal at all and I’m sorry people have made you feel this way. Please take as much time off as you want after promo, or take transition if you really aren’t happy here. This job isn’t worth your happiness.

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I also wouldn’t let the bschool rejection thing stress me. Many people just apply to HBS/gsb and then are heartbroken when they get rejected. If you only applied to 1/2 schools then I wouldn’t consider it a rejection. If you truly want to go to bschool apply to several! Would ask for 2 weeks off, regroup and get back into it and always remember you don’t *need to work in consulting and have it take over your life. It’s a choice you made snd there are other more chill jobs out there

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