Yeah that’s really not the vibe! That’s just stingy by your old boss.

In NZ, loads of professional firms shut down over Xmas as it’s summer. They basically make their staff take at least two weeks leave over this time because there’s no provision in employment law to force them to find work for people who don’t want to holiday then. My wife was a lawyer so she got caught up in this, used to annoy the shit out of me being forced to use so much leave at a time we did’t want to.