Wall Street’s five-day work week mandate is poised to put a major crimp on bankers’ long weekends this winter – especially for senior bankers who scooped up vacation bungalows in Florida and the Rockies during the pandemic, sources told On The Money.
As some of the wealthiest financiers bought second, third or even fourth homes in posh destinations like Miami and Aspen, they got used to spending Fridays and Mondays outside the city during the harsh New York winter.
This year, however, top bankers face spending Saturdays and Sundays inside their relatively poky New York apartments.
“We all bought condos at the Surf Club or the Faena during COVID and worked remotely during the winter of 2021 and 2022,” one New Yorker griped. “Now I’ll be down there Christmas week and President’s weekend if I’m lucky.”
In April, JPMorgan said senior employees need to “lead by example” – and show up to their desks five days a week. Goldman Sachs – whose CEO David Solomon famously called remote work an “aberration” at the height of the pandemic – said in August it would clamp down after summer.
Not all of the rank and file are ready to fall in line this winter.
“If they don’t let me work from Florida, I’ll go to a firm that does,” one defiant Wall Streeter told On The Money.
Meanwhile, those at the very top – the 0.1% – have access to private jets that can whisk them off to the Bahamas or Miami for a night or two. But some note that could stoke resentment among the “have nots” who can’t shell out $30,000 to charter a jet.
Still others speculate the crackdown on working from home could spur an odd phenomenon: workaholics in upper management taking more vacations as a hack to work remotely.
Indeed, one source who spent much of the pandemic working remotely and skiing multiple days each week said she plans to use all of her vacation days – but will simply work through them.
“I’m just going to have to plan three full weeks of ‘vacation’ in Aspen — of course vacation and remote are the same to me,” the source said.
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