I recently started a job in the Civil Service through an agency, and the agency's policy is to force their staff to use their vacation time on any days the office is closed.

Agency staff in the Civil Service accrue their vacation at a rate of one day for every three work weeks (Monday-Friday). Since I started on November 4th, I will not have enough vacation time to take the four office closure days as holidays.

I asked if I could take the four closure days as unpaid and keep my vacation days; my manager at the Civil Service said something about business need (odd because the office is closed for four days), and my consultant at the agency just said no and ignored me when pushed for further explanation.

Since I don't have enough vacation time to take the four closure days off, I'm not going to get paid for Christmas anyway, so I really don't understand what the agency's problem is.

What should I do here? Any help and advice you guys can give me will be much appreciated.