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There's one argument left that never fails

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'Great news, team,' I say at our Monday morning meeting, 'the bank wants us all to take extra time off this year.' Nobody smiles. Those members of my team who survived the redundancies are not silly. They know very well that there is no silver lining in banking that is not attached to a large dark cloud.

'It's completely voluntary,' I continue, 'so it's up to you to decide whether or not you would like to have the extra time off, but you should appreciate that this is unpaid leave, not normal annual leave.'

'What do you mean by voluntary? Can we just ignore this?' asks Dan, still unhappy about receiving his smallest ever bonus a couple of months ago.

'Well, the management can't force you to take unpaid leave, but we would strongly encourage you to do so.' This is part of the cost-savings process. When companies are done making people redundant, workers are offered voluntary unpaid leave, then pressured to do so and, if that doesn't work, forced to take voluntary unpaid leave.

'So what happens if we don't volunteer for this voluntary unpaid leave?'

'Well, how can I put this,' I replied, 'if you don't take the recommended days of unpaid leave, management will be disappointed with you. And I don't think that in these times you want management to be disappointed with you.'

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