Who Works During the Holidays?

While sitting here at my computer, plugging away at tending the bin, I started wondering who else might be hard at work, instead of enjoying what most in the world (especially in America) would consider "the Holidays". I've stumbled into working this season for the second year in a row, and I find myself not bothered much by it at all. If you had asked me even 5 years ago if I would give up my Christmas vacation for work, I would have laughed and answered with a resounding "No!". Have any of you fallen into similar behavior? As an aside, what Holidays do many of you find yourselves working, whether it be Christmas, Thanksgiving, or some other Holiday, what drives you to work when others are enjoying their time off?

Ski Resorts

[clandaith]

I am the computer guru for a ski resort here in Utah. We work everyday of the ski season, usually mid-Nov. to late April.

We are the location that some people take their vacations. So, I'm at work.

depends...

[Anonymous Coward]

Does school work count?
(my thesis project never sleeps)

Money

[Kamran]

I find the need and want for money, more than an ample substitute to work whilst everyone is on holiday, especially if the company you work for will give you the holiday time later as well :)

Of course I'm at work...

[Macrobat]

Why the Hell else would I be posting to Slashdot on Christmas, if I weren't slacking off at work?

Holidays....

[Llanfairpwllgwyngyll]

"Holidays"... what are they?!

# man -k holiday
holiday: nothing appropriate.

Hmmm.....

kernel hacking

[category9]

i got out of bed and had a rant on irc. had dinner with family, then headed too the study to work on my secret coding project. there bugger all else to do, tv is 25 year old xmas special repeats. i couldn't think of a better way to spend my holiday than coding whilst listening to bbc lord of the rings (i should convert it too ogg vorbis).

Not me!

[BoarderPhreak]

I'm freshly, um, err... "Free."

...and I don't mean "free" as in "beer." ;)

Bastards...

Re:I'm a physician

[Anonymous Coward]

I presume you're an MD of the Hannibal Lecter variety? Seriously, I wonder how many sociopathic physicians (such as yourself) are practicing this very moment...hmmmmm?

Your words: "I'm glad we are killing this particular group of people. I hope we are killing them in large numbers, in the most gruesome way possible, in such a frightening display of force that their great-grandchildren will tell stories to each other of our determination to avenge our dead."

I work at Copper!

[vinn]

I'm in the same boat - I work at Copper Mtn in Colorado doing telecom/datacom/misc IS stuff. I've always wondered what kind of a freak family gets together to ski on Christmas, but there seems to be enough to fill all of our lodging.

I heard Little Cottonwood canyon got dumped on, how's the snow? What resort are you at?

PS. Wanna trade comp passes?

T'is the season to be JORRY

[Lobo_Louie]

fa rah rah rah rah rah rah rah rah

Well ...

[debrain]

Does moderating Slashdot count as work?

Re:Holidays are useful resources

[clark625]

Agreed. Typical vacation times really do make wonderful times to update machines or make other drastic changes to systems.

Here where I am, though, the department morons spent all last week reconfiguring the web server, mail server, and department firewall. They were nice and didn't commit the changes until 5:00pm on Friday. Then they left. The firewall is blocking access to all critical systems, the web server is rejecting requests randomly, and the mail server simly won't accept or transport mail--period. The guys resposible haven't answered phone calls, e-mails, or knocks on their doors. They all seem to have left for the holidays and who knows when they will be back.

Sigh....

Re:who's working?

[friscolr]

cool bosses (so my employees don't have to work today)

well shit, then we might as well add angels, unicorns, cyborgs, and other mythical creatures.

Re:Im Santa

[ThatComputerGuy]

Don't listen to the Fat Bastard, he's lying! It's us, the Elves and Reindeers, that do all the work!

Damn you Santa!

Home Depot

[SilentChris]

My friend works at a Home Depot, and she had to be in until 6:00 yesterday. Christmas Eve. Who the hell buys bathroom tiles on Christmas Eve?

Re:Holidays are useful resources

[Judg3]

I agree to. Up until I quit awhile I go, we almost always worked holidays. My ex company dealt with the buying and reselling of real-time stock data, and as such are regulated by the SEC.
Heck, back in May of 2000 we worked the entire month because they were trying to fix one of our UPS'es. Come in Saturday at 2am, shutdown all 2500 servers. Come back Sunday at 6am, and start em back up.
Thats a month I never wish to relivev again, unless I'm hourly then!

Re:I am.

[Klerck]

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* \ \-~ ~-\ *

g \ \ .--------.___\ g

o \ \// ((> \ o

a \ . C ) ((> / a

t /\ C )/Merry\ (> / t

s / /\ C) Xmas! (> / \ s

e ( C__)\___/ // _/ / \ e

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* \ \) `---- --' *

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* g o a t s e x * g o a t s e x * g o a t s e x *

Just Christians and an Atheist here

[Anonymous Coward]

The only folks who came in to work here today were hard-core christians (folks who see christmas as the pagan holiday it came from) and an atheist (that's me!).

The milder christians, jews, agnostics, etc. all were more sensible and took the day off.

Apparently, HACKERS do! The Register Is Gone!

[Tsar]

This link [www.nic.uk] at NIC.uk [www.nic.uk] gives the domain registration info of The Register [theregister.co.uk], which appears to have been hacked on Christmas Eve!

WHOIS query result:
________________________________________

Domain Name: THEREGISTER.CO.UK

Registered For: The Register

Domain Registered By: DETAGGED

Record last updated on 24-Dec-2001 by .

Domain servers listed in order:

WHOIS database last updated at 21:19:01 25-Dec-2001

The NIC.UK Registration Host contains ONLY information for domains
within co.uk, org.uk, net.uk, ltd.uk and plc.uk. Please use the whois
server at rs.internic.net for Internet Information or the whois server
at nic.ddn.mil for MILNET Information.

Is it only coincidence that this falls on the second anniversary of the Hotmail/Passport outage [slashdot.org] that gave Michael Chaney [slashdot.org] his fifteen minutes of Slashdot fame?

Re:who's working?

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Yep. I was a medic in the Air Force for eight years, and worked in the base E.R. for most of that time. I ended up working Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter -- the big "family" holidays -- most years since the folks who were married with kids always wanted those holidays off. Never bothered me very much, but it was funny sometimes.

My favorite was the lady who walked in on Christmas day with a sore throat she'd had for two weeks. While I was checking her in, she told me, "I can't believe they make you guys work on Christmas." I refrained from answering, "Well, I guess you'd be pretty upset if you came to the E.R. and we had a 'Closed for the holidays' sign on the door ..."