Summer holidays, whether you like them or not

In his seminal 1979 book Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste, the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu analyses why the wealthy and educated tend to have different preferences from the poorer and less educated. Bourdieu argued that people don’t consciously choose their tastes; rather, their preferences are shaped unconsciously by their social class. Just as we naturally learn the language of our upbringing, our tastes develop within the context of our social environment. These preferences are not just personal choices but are influenced by the social class we belong to, which serves to signal our status to others.

This concept also applies to bankers’ holidays. You might think you’re choosing the perfect destination for yourself (and, if applicable, your family or friends), but your choices are very much shaped by your status, standing, self-image and what you think your purported peers are doing. There’s an element of one-upmanship: the destination you choose, the hotel you stay in, the direction you take when you board the aircraft — all of these are fodder for discussion and scrutiny from your colleagues.

And so holiday venues end up being fairly narrow, and you often bump into colleagues and competitors, whether in Ibiza, Nantucket or Courchevel. When it comes to holidays, it’s sometimes hard to get away.

Then there’s the question of when to go. If you work in a client-facing role, you want to go on holiday when your clients are also away. In much of Europe, that means August. Deal flow is lumpy and unpredictable and requires that you be present when an opportunity materialises. Woody Allen’s maxim that “80% of success is showing up” holds true — if anything, 80% is an underestimate — and if you’re not there, the deal may go to a competitor. Management is unlikely to be sympathetic to the explanation that you had swanned off on holiday when another bank takes the mandate.

So there’s no point vacationing in shoulder-season May and being in the office in August. August at least coincides with school holidays, which is beneficial if you have children, but it brings its own headaches. Every place is rammed with tourists, and overcrowding and “overtourism” are worse than ever. Even the quietest Mediterranean coves are swarming with sunbathers; everything from accommodation to parking to guide hire becomes a hassle; and prices skyrocket. You want to get away from it all, but it all follows you.

Since hanging up my capital markets boots two-and-a-half years ago, I’ve enjoyed off-peak travel and noticed two main benefits. First, it is much more pleasant to avoid the hordes — a game-changer in fact. Second, the other tourists I encounter don’t work in investment banking (or the law, for the matter). A large percentage work in the public sector or other industries where the kind of seasonality of capital markets work does not apply.

And this leads me to my next observation. Non-banking Muggles vacation without a care in the world, a luxury that can provoke envy in those still grinding away in finance. Capital markets bankers are often tethered to their laptops and phones, taking conference calls and checking emails, even when they desperately wish to disconnect.

Ironically, it’s the junior bankers who often have the most freedom because they can usually hand off their work to a comrade in the bullpen. Senior originators, however, are less inclined or able to pass on their responsibilities. Much of their value derives from the client relationships, and they want to claim credit for any revenue generated. Additionally, clients expect consistency of coverage, especially in the middle of a deal. The class struggle is real — but inverted — at investment banks.

And it gets worse for the managing directors because they report to senior management. While some senior managers maintain active client dialogue, others prefer to focus on oversight and supervision, staying above the fray of deal origination and execution. This gives them freedom to take holiday when they wish but it also means that while an MD takes a holiday at the same time as the client, there may still be internal demands to meet.

How do vacations work across the pond? If you talk to MDs in the US, they will proudly tell you they’re so busy they don’t take time off at all. But President’s Day weekend, spring break, the week of July 4, a week or two in August and again around Christmas…. well, it adds up.

And even before the pandemic, you’d struggle to find a New York-based MD at the desk on a Friday as so many would decamp to the Hamptons or the Jersey shore. While US bankers work hard, they are adept at finding scheduling lacunae to take their breaks.

Your friends or family may think you’re a workaholic or addicted to your job, but the reality is more nuanced: you sometimes must take that call or review that document. In a sense you don’t have a choice.

In many ways, holiday time encapsulates a lot of the trade-offs bankers make in their careers. Finance is incredibly (some say obscenely) well-compensated, but your holidays are often constrained by convention, circumstance, and responsibility.

Bankers have the means to travel high-end, but often lack the freedom to truly get away from it all and do what they really want. It’s a vocation that doesn’t make it easy to vacation.