I'm Over Christmas: Part II

[bjarvis]

From yesterday's experiences, I know better now than to venture anywhere outside of the narrow corridor from home to office: anything resembling retail activity is to be discontinued for about a week to avoid the seething hoards of shopping zombies. By not bothering with lunches or outside activities of any sort, I should be able to get more work done at the office, right?



It's a freakin' ghost town in here. I have a ward of auditors generating Sarbox evidence & compliance requests at the speed of light because they want to wrap up this phase of work by the end of the year to meet their annual bonus requirements. Meanwhile, my dear employer is furloughing the contractors I need to complete these requests for the same period of time to save money so our directors can meet their annual bonus requirements. Great. The part that is really bothering me is... where are all my non-contract employees, colleagues and managers?

I can't get any of them on the telephone, there's no evidence they've been in their cubes or offices today, they're not answering their pagers and there are no "on vacation" notices in our group calendars. Half of my staff have simply buggered off for extended holiday lunches, misc shopping expeditions or other such nonsense. WTF?!

When did chronic absenteeism and failure to perform one's work become acceptable practice during the Christmas season? My managers are usually very good about ensuring that not too many people go on training or off on vacation simultaneously so that we have sufficient staff to run our basic business ops. That rule goes out the window at Christmas.

Try this kind of behavior across, say, the Memorial Day weekend or the July 4 weekend and management comes down hard. As deege pointed out yesterday, taking time out for a non-Christian holiday likewise draws the not-so-subtle ire of managers. But if you're celebrating the birth of Jesus, it's OK to take unannounced vacation or simply be unavailable for as long as you like...

I'm trying to get work done here... why does it have to be this bloody hard?

Comments

Total Agreement Here!

[cuyahogarvr.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'm totally supporting you on this one. It has been incredibly difficult to work with any supplier during this yule season. God forbid if I have to contact a real person via phone. I've been stranded in "on hold" hell for over an hour already this week. Celebrating the holidays is one thing, shrugging your responsibilities because of it is unacceptable.

[madknits.livejournal.com]

I have not at all had the same experience as you. Our clients are calling, our vendors are delivering, and I'm working like a dog. I am hoping to get out early on Friday, but I very much doubt that that will happen. No one in this office is shirking their work, no on is taking long lunches (in fact, we all usually eat at our desks, and I haven't taken a real lunch break in months). There is no joy here, no happiness, no excitement for the coming holidays. If it weren't for the fact that we are closed on Dec 25 and 26, you would barely know that Christmas or New Year's was coming.

Wanna trade?

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

Wanna trade?

Dear god, yes. I can handle multitasking and mountains of work so long as I can actually make some progress on them. In my current state, the work is piling up but I can't do squat to get the backlogged cleared because the holiday season. Grrr.

[moofedct.livejournal.com]

Quit posting to LJ and get back to work, slacker!

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

I can now... three people have finally started responding to my pages so I can restart on this pile o' assignments.

[tdjohnsn.livejournal.com]

For some reason, your post made me think of this quote:

'What else can I be,' returned the uncle, 'when I live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas. What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in them through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will,' said Scrooge indignantly,'every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!'

I can't imagine what made me think of that...

:-)

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's not a bad assessment. Scrooge had some good ideas. :-)

This time of year wouldn't bother me quite so much if we could cut an equal amount of slack to people through the rest of the year. I'm constantly amazed that as a society we (largely) reject special privileges exclusively for Christians, but we exempt Christmas from any critical cost/benefit examination. Productivity for the latter half of December is shot to hell, but the nation would be up in arms if we proposed giving other religions a free pass to blow off a half-month for, say, Ramadan, Diwali or such.

I'm tired and cranky, but despite everyone else has abandoning the office, I think it would be unconscionable for me to do likewise. But if I tried taking extra time off in, say, July, I'd suddenly be deemed a slacker and "not a team player."

[bootedintexas.livejournal.com]

My supervisor is working really hard and running around like a chicken with her head cut off..why? oh she's on vacation for the rest of the year. Does she know we are running out of work, and our work load is almost down to a trickle. Could she run more reports before she disapears for a week and a day. probably not.

Ironically the same person who refused to participate in secret santa cause "Christmas isnt about presents"..oh thats right i forgot..its about taking vacation without ensuring that work can be accomplished at a good volume while you are gone

[rsc.livejournal.com]

I was never able to convince any of the organizations I worked for that end-of-year deadlines only made sense if you scheduled them under the assumption that, for productive-work purposes, there was about a week between Thanksgiving and New Year's, if that.

[cuyahogarvr.livejournal.com]

As a teacher, I was an evil SOB. I ALWAYS scheduled a MAJOR exam on the last day before any major break like Christmas or Easter. All of the parties and all of the programs were over so unless something productive was scheduled, nothing was accomplished. I refused to force my students to clean, so I scheduled and exam. They hated me for it, but I was still one of their best teachers.

[beartalon.livejournal.com]

I have spent every week between American Thanksgiving and now trying to get information for each of several projects. I was told two weeks ago that some were on hold until the New Year (for no apparent reason). For one other, all the information I needed, requested in smaller pieces over the prior time, just came through today with a request "to try to have something done before Christmas." A "to try" request from this client is like a "Do it, do it now, or we'll close the account."

Let's see - two weeks worth of work which could have been done four weeks ago if you all hadn't been getting ready for Thanksgiving, a three weeks period in which the information wasn't sent for no reason I can fathom, although I got a lot of out-of-office notices, and suddenly the day before the day *I* leave for a week, I'm supposed to be able to get this project completed and fully tested AND be available in case of problems suddenly during my week off? (and it's only a week off because I have approved vacation, instead of "oops forgot to go back to work after Christmas") This assumes of course that I have nothing else to do, that the people I need to help me are available (and they aren't) and the information I received answers ALL my questions and the process doesn't enounter new ones. I don't know if it does. I haven't read it yet because the email containing it arrived as I was leaving today.

As for my own office, the ghosts of Christmas presents (ie, shopping employees who are not here) are in the halls, with everyone gone at different days and times and on long lunches, and I've spent much time trying to track them down because they gave no warning, and then I go into their "severely backed-up queue" when they return.

Is everyone oblivious to the results of this?

"Oh I'm so overworked, and I'm trying to get an intimate Christmas dinner set up for me and my 20 visiting relatives because it's my turn this year..." One lady near me left 2 hours early today to get her nails done so they'll be well-fortified for wrapping the several (50?) gifts she has to prepare - that was her excuse. I've seen her sporadically this week, but never between 11:30 and 2PM, because she's out shopping.

Employers should set a rule that only approved vacations happen during December - no long lunches, etc. However, to keep people from rebelling, give them a company-wide day off in mid-December to get their Christmas stuff completed or at least well-underway, and that's the only day you get, so suck it up and do the non-work related stuff on your own time, or take real vacation to handle your personal affairs.

The same lady that took off early to buff her nails and shop almost all week on work time is the same one that went to Cuba for a week earlier in December, and spent a week before that trip on work time at the tanning salon, getting her hair done and shopping for beach-wear...