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

[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.