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From the banking sector I frequently hear that bank managers are not reachable during their holidays. And that with force: some banks cut off the Blackberry feed, close all email addresses, plus all access to the bank system is inaccessible for the employees. Quite drastic actions for those who want to keep working. Or for those who are not bothered by an occasional email, and who hate cleaning up 100% before holidays begin in order to hand over work assignments.

In addition, employees must obligate themselves to take two weeks of holidays at once at least once per year, or else the company will assign them a block of time.

My suspicion that this is action on the grounds of employment protection to punish achievers for their intentions is completely wrong. No - it's management that enforces this rule with all their power. For those who play with banking and client funds on the securities markets could indeed cheat the bank, or at least try to cover up what's not going so well.

The calculation is that after at least two weeks of inactivity, or takeover by a foreign representative, 90% of all fraud and concealment attempts are busted. Well then - off to holidays. Not as a reward, but because your boss does not trust you and hereby can much more adeptly check what you are actually doing.

As a side effect roaming charges for 100,000 employees are also quickly gone. In case of an actual emergency, you can even leave the hotel address :)

P.S.: My spell check says it does not know the word "holidays". I just had to laugh at that. But it was a grammatical error. Maybe I'm slowly ready for holidays.