Brit workers: The Xmas skive starts today A poll of 2,500 Brit workers has confirmed what most of us already knew: the Xmas holiday starts tonight at 5pm as a third of the UK's workforce will "mentally switch off" in advance of next week's pre-Yule skive. That's according to Teletext holidays, which estimates that nine million people will from Monday fill their …
(Posted as anon coward incase the boss reads the reg)
It def started today. My office is more than half empty (although mianly with folk who have taken the last of their hols today).
I can;t get motiviated to work so close to christmas and with noone about so spent most of the day surfing the web and the rest trying valiantly to find something interesting to do. Think I might knock off a bit early and get a Christmas pint or two in!
"We tried to conduct a Reg straw poll to confirm the above findings, but the sales department has been lodged in the nearest wine bar since 11am, the Strategy Boutique emailed in to say it was "redefining the pro-somnia paradigm" (i.e. still in bed), and members of the editorial team nipped out an hour ago "for a news meeting" and are believed to be exchanging Xmas gifts (beer, in pint glasses) in Vulture Central local The Scribe and Strumpet"
Im glad to see that El Reg are keeping up there normal working standards and not falling in to this skive trap.
Are we to take the ironic lack of comments on this article as evidence that the world of IT workers are all down the pub instead of pretending to work by reading El Reg or playing counterstrike at their workstations and answering the odd phone call saying "have you switched it off and on again?" before returing to the surruptitious websurfing or departmental lanfest?
I am sitting in my lab waiting for my TCA precipitation to centrifuge while all the other scientists have gone to the Genome Centre kneesup or down to the "Mongolian Barbeque" in Brighton for some nosh and booze. (I am not that sad - planned experiment while forgetting that the pissup/skive was on for today, D'oh!).
Pah, lightweights... Started for me yesterday at 5pm...
Which is why I'm now sat at my office desk with a hangover and heartburn from last nights curry-fest.
Oh well, the official office party is tonight, so best I do something useful, and fill the photocopier paper tray up.
Happy Crumble everyone!
" the Xmas holiday starts tonight at 5pm"
Nah, it started at lunchtime. It's ten to four and I just got back to me desk from lunch. Which started at at 12.45. And was mostly made out of beer.
On top of that, I can't be working very hard if I'm posting here....
cheersh! <hic> and happy christmas
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network lockdown was started about 2 weeks ago, strangely faults have dropped by about two 3rds..
And this is the first time in 5 years I get 2 weks off, and the first time in 4 years I've not worked on christmas day... :)
And to think, initially i was worried about my job going to India... LOL, they can have it.
Happy Christmas from (anonymous massive ISP)...
Your employer sucks, then. I'm taking 2 hours off on Monday the 17th (dental, not so much a holiday as what I hope is the beginning of a long holiday from pain), and we get the 24th and 25th off as paid holidays. Then I'm taking the 26th as a vacation day because Boxing Day seems a very good idea. No work will get done the 27th or 28th, except in the machine shop (which is mostly automated work anyhow, the employees just shift materials and load the programs when it's time to change them), and the following Monday and Tuesday will be paid days off...
We might get back to actually doing things on Jan 3rd.
And this *is* the USA.
Buggers!
Thought that I had pulled a flanker by jacking the job earlier in the year and then they ask me back part time.
I agreed to work 3 days, (Tuesday ,Wednesday, Thursday ) without realising that I will miss out on bank Holidays as they are on Fridays and Mondays :-(
Spare a thought for us who are in our 50's and have managed to escape without having cushy jobs or share options...
yah. we shutdown the whole box on xmas for a WEEK. but...if ya wannna work , even part of it... it's overtime. 40hrs ot anybody? not usually. 16-24hrs mebbe. just for money and masochisms sake... oh... but anyone ranking group leader and above won't be there? nniiiice...
count me in...
I was given a job to install a Plan 107 telephone system on XMAS EVE! The customer (Brit Gas) told me when I turned up at 10:00 that they were all off down the pub "soon, like 12:00!" I looked at want was wanted & said I'd finish it by then. There was much laughter & chuckling at 'the poor BT engineer actually working today!' I finished the job at 11:00 & then joined them in the pub & had free drinks all afternoon! I never worked so fast before; although I have done better than that but...
I work for myself so if my boss gives a shit if i come in late or not at all, then I have only myself to blame.
I work when and only if I want to. My "commute" is down the stairs and a sharp left into my office. I don't answer my phone except by appointment -- if my bloody clients want me urgently, they can fax me and wait for a response.
I step out of my back door, walk up the lane, and look across the rolling green fields of West Cork fading down towards the sea.
Best of all... I love my work so much it's not even like work (and if it was, I'd do something else).
Life does NOT get better than this.
Happy Christmas, everyone.
-- Jon
Some companies have a 'change freeze' between now and the middle of jan, as senior policy makers, and essential staff 'who only that thing' become unavailable on holidays, or just in the pub :)
There is a slow-down, but not a skive, afterall you can do that any time of the year if you like, its just that christmas almost forces it on you....
Let us spare a thought for the unfortunate IT contractors; who would not notice the the difference between this week and any other week and whos' life is one long holiday. Perhaps we should have a whip-round for the poor little blighters, when they will only have 1 day on their invoices next week....shame!!
Stewart said :-
Let us spare a thought for the unfortunate IT contractors; who would not notice the the difference between this week and any other week and whos' life is one long holiday. Perhaps we should have a whip-round for the poor little blighters, when they will only have 1 day on their invoices next week....shame!!
Only 2 days in the Netherlands :) Then its back to work.. Then moving... Why does this always happen around xmas...
Four years ago I did some "deep level" support (whatever that means) for a large IT company.
The refused all my holidays (long story) until December and then said that I'd had to be "on call" for the three weeks that I was on holiday. I couldn't go anywhere without my laptop. I couldn't even have a drink at New Year.
So I was on holiday and being paid double time to support a system which had absolutely zero users because they were all on holiday too. Nedless to say, I got absolutely rat-arsed and didn't take the laptop with me anywhere...
While these so called "workers" spend 2 or 3 weeks doing sod all productive, the people who actually keep the country running and all the rest of you alive and able to bugger about, are busy doing REAL work. You know, the kind where you use your body to achieve a noticeable end result - like food on the shelves, animals kept alive, fires put out, people operated on, f*kin cards delivered, etc.
Personally, I'm working the 24th, 27th and 28th then the 31st and back to normal on the 2nd of Jan. (And BTW, my working day is rarely less than 13 hours long).
Enjoy yourselves, just bear in mind how many people do without for your benefit.
Proles.
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