Did your job ruined Christmas for you ?

jibbajabba

Mine did .. and still does ... Christmas Day .. 12pm ... problems .. from that point on I am on a 12hr rotation with a colleague to try to fix all that .... and will likely be ongoing until the new year .. so far cancelled

1. Quiet Christmas with my wife, I only got married to last month
2. Christmas dinner with parents in law
3. Flight cancelled to see my parents
4. New Years party cancelled

So .. first married Christmas turns out to be the worst

Kinet1c

I'm currently in the office....usually 250+ in but just 10 in today. I took all my holiday/vacation too early this year! Thankfully not as stressful as your time in work right now.

gorebrush

I opted to work overtime nights on 23rd and 24th and back in work today, so short xmas for me.

Off 31st 1 2 3rd though so there's my break really.

the_Grinch

Really sorry to hear that jibbajabba! I've always been lucky in any place I worked was closed on the holidays (except the MSP, but almost all of our clients were so it was easy to get off). The university was the best though, 25th to the 2nd was paid time off...definitely missing that this year.

MosGuy

Didn't for me; 10 hour shift, 365 days a year. Tho if I need time off the admins are accommodating. Not having time off doesn't bother me. Work for a small UK based VPS provider, on the night/graveyard shift. Most days are quiet and flexible so I can do my own thing or study.

On the 24th, one of the linux servers had a file system issue. Then a DDoS attack toward a couple Windows accounts on another server. Made for a semi busy xmas eve.

I can see why it would be rather annoying for a newlywed. I'm divorced, so free from those marital disappointments/stress

W Stewart

Got to spend christmas day with my wife and son. Worked christmas night. I wouldn't say my christmas was ruined but I couldn't get any sleep yesterday and I've been dead tired at work for the past two days. Night shift sucks.

ajs1976

This year and last year were both good, but two years ago I was oncall for my former company and Christmas was completely ruined. Got a call at 3am and didn't finish until after the kids were done opening presents.

jvrlopez

Ghost town on the 24th, got the 25th off, and was allowed to take vacation for the 26th.

No one is at the office on the 27th, a Friday which are half days anyways.

FloOz

My office has been a ghost town! Quite boring these past few days have been

jvrlopez

You could hear a penny drop from across the building.

Went to another office on the 23rd to talk to someone about taking care of a quick issue and was told that they were out until the 6th!!!

Back on topic: I've worked my share of holidays throughout my years.

Working close to 30 hours over the 4th of July weekend and another weekend where I had $3000 stolen from me come to mind.

Sometimes you get the day off, other times you don't. Luckily most places gave me a comp day to make up for it. Take it as it comes, I guess.

aquilla

First time I have worked Xmas day this year. Was working the night shift from Sunday 22nd for 4 nights.

When I found out I was working Xmas, I booked the New Year off so am now off until 7th Jan.

Despite having our Xmas dinner and presents etc on the 26th, somehow it didn't feel quite right. Hopefully won't be working the Xmas shift again anytime soon.

antielvis

This year I was off, but in the past I've had to work. I got used to being the first guy in, last guy out over holidays. Honestly, sometimes I liked it because the week around Christmas was the only time one could work without interruption. I used it to catch up on the stuff I wanted to do but never got around too.

Khaos1911

Going pretty well for me. The "firewall/Anti-virus" guy and myself are the only two on the team here and we'd probably not be here if our bosses boss wasn't here ....It's cool though, no tickets or issues and I'm spending a bunch of time studying for CEH v8 exam, so no biggie.

N2IT

It's been just fine. Sorry for the OP those are some crappy things to have happen.

devils_haircut

I worked the 25th. I thought I'd be there with a few other people. Nope. The entire cube farm was empty except for me. Since we're on a desktop refresh project, I had plenty of new machines to image and lots of CBTnuggets videos to watch. Being a contractor, though, I didn't get overtime or any kind of holiday pay.

lrcasey17

Luckily I had the day off.

msteinhilber

I've been away from the office and incident free since the 23rd.

kj0

I'm lucky I work in a school. unfortunately. I'm a contractor and I have 5 weeks without pay, so this Christmas I am spending it trying to get a new job.

Otherwise, at this time, If I had to work Christmas, it wouldn't be too much of a worry for myself and my wife, I wouldn't end up having lunch with my parents/family - but over the years we have had christmas day scattered over different days. Boxing day would matter a lot though for my wife as that is the day that is with her family and they have always had Boxing day (It means we also have to travel to the next state).

jibbajabba

lrcasey17 wrote: »

Luckily I had the day off.

Me too ... Technically

Plantwiz

Considering the amount of people I know who have recently lost jobs and/or continue to struggle to find anything long-term and permanent, I do not see how this is a problem. Perhaps an inconvenience, but not a problem.

As far as 'missing' holiday's with spouse and family...my recommendation is to treat each day as a special day and value you the time you have with them and when you have time with them. A good friend's father never made it home from work. Truck (pickup not a semi) cut him off on the highway and forced him off the road, flipped and crushed him.

When I was married, my spouse and I (and our families) all had an understanding that due to the nature of our jobs, we may not make certain events. So, it goes. When family is out-of-town, it is impossible to make all the visits at the same day regardless. So, keep each day as special. Celebrate with extended family as weather and time permits.

Glad to hear you are working. Congratulations on the marriage.


And without getting into a religious discussion, Christmas is about 'Christ' your day cannot be ruined

kj0

Plantwiz wrote: »

Considering the amount of people I know who have recently lost jobs and/or continue to struggle to find anything long-term and permanent, I do not see how this is a problem. Perhaps an inconvenience, but not a problem.

As far as 'missing' holiday's with spouse and family...my recommendation is to treat each day as a special day and value you the time you have with them and when you have time with them. A good friend's father never made it home from work. Truck (pickup not a semi) cut him off on the highway and forced him off the road, flipped and crushed him.

When I was married, my spouse and I (and our families) all had an understanding that due to the nature of our jobs, we may not make certain events. So, it goes. When family is out-of-town, it is impossible to make all the visits at the same day regardless. So, keep each day as special. Celebrate with extended family as weather and time permits.

Glad to hear you are working. Congratulations on the marriage.


And without getting into a religious discussion, Christmas is about 'Christ' your day cannot be ruined

Well Said. All.

earonw49

Plantwiz wrote: »

Considering the amount of people I know who have recently lost jobs and/or continue to struggle to find anything long-term and permanent, I do not see how this is a problem. Perhaps an inconvenience, but not a problem.

As far as 'missing' holiday's with spouse and family...my recommendation is to treat each day as a special day and value you the time you have with them and when you have time with them. A good friend's father never made it home from work. Truck (pickup not a semi) cut him off on the highway and forced him off the road, flipped and crushed him.

When I was married, my spouse and I (and our families) all had an understanding that due to the nature of our jobs, we may not make certain events. So, it goes. When family is out-of-town, it is impossible to make all the visits at the same day regardless. So, keep each day as special. Celebrate with extended family as weather and time permits.

Glad to hear you are working. Congratulations on the marriage.


And without getting into a religious discussion, Christmas is about 'Christ' your day cannot be ruined

Going to the hospital now because of the radiation from your wisdom bomb

For real though, *claps from chair*

Cpl.Klinger

I worked Christmas Day out of choice. I'm not going to pass up holiday pay AND ot for working on the holiday. Luckily, I could choose my hours, and since I work from home, it still didn't make much difference. I did a short stint from 6-8:30pm after everything for the day was over.

After working for 10 years in retail, and working most every holiday, it doesn't bug me much. This was the second Christmas Eve I've had off in 10 years, and in the past 10 years I've worked every Memorial Day Weekend and every 4th of July. I'll probably work those this year as well. But now I work somewhere more flexible, so I can take a weekend off here or there, and I work a schedule that works better for my family. That's worth more to me than some of the holidays.

Cleverclogs

It didn't this year, because I only had to remote in and do a couple of checks that took 10 minutes or so. On boxing day I did have a few things that had gone wrong to deal with, but that was only a problem until around 10am so wasn't much of an issue either. So far I've never had anything from work ruin Christmas, but that can and probably will happen at least once

pbchief2

Yes, they laid me off.

minit

If you are looking for a career with a fair work life balance, then choose something other then IT. I'm currently looking for a second career that does not require being on call.

jibbajabba

Still working on that problem at work .. Worked yesterday 6am until today 9am .... longest shift yet

New Years ruined /cancelled too ...

jvrlopez

Hope it gets fixed soon.

Some comp time is in order, I'm sure.

My New Years is still in order (just staying home with the wife), but I'd like to leave a little early if possible since there is nothing to do...

Plantwiz

@jibba,

Really sorry you see this as a "ruined" vs, just part of your responsibilities. There are very few occupations where one gets a very high wage, unlimited benefits, all major holidays off, vacation time and no weekends and no evenings.

If you chose to take on more of a managerial role, then you will likely be blessed with being on call even when it is NOT your turn because when your workers hit a snag, they will be calling you about it (and you will want them to call).

If you lived in North east of the US, and worked for consumers power you would have spent the last week (away from family) working to restore power so others could have some comfort.

Pick a different evening to celebrate the new year if it means that much to you and your new spouse. This likely won't be your last New Years together, but it probably won't be the last one where one or both of you have other obligations. Welcome to the grown-up world. I get you are disappointed about the two holiday's that you did not get to do what you hoped...

Consider the following

If everything shut down for a holiday, are you willing to go without things?
- no police or fire rescue
- no hospitals and no nursing homes (that means your sick loved one is on their own because no one is working)
- no labs working
- no pharmacy
- no gas stations - no travel
- no planes, no trains, no boats/ferries
- no electric and no gas company employees
- no cable
- no news reporters
- no snow plowing
- no churches
- no soup kitchens
- no shelters
- no military
- no anything that requires another person to 'work' for any convenience another person takes or uses.

You are disappointed. I understand. However, I have worked decades of holidays for others could benefit from the services of the companies I worked for. There is still time for the spouse and the kids...just need to decide what is important and how to balance the load. I have always fancied earning the money I could from my work so my family was able to enjoy the remaining 363 days of the year with shelter and food.

Of course, you personally do not have to balance responsibilities and instead can be upset a couple days of the he year did not go as planned.