Tuesday, December 28, 2010

How I spent my xmas vacation

Last week my big holiday plans were to take a half day off Friday and relax over the weekend. So Friday, very tired, I dragged myself out of bed and went to the office only to discover that they had shut the power down in the building (that's a first). So, I went home and spent a full day working from my apartment, repeatedly explaining to Asia that it's holiday season in the US and our surprise ninja electricity saving action inadvertently shut down all the servers in our building bringing down several global applications just in time to screw up their year-end operations. But at least traffic was light.

Then on Saturday, a Channukwanzaramadamasux miracle happened. We had a white xmas! In the air. Snow fell, and the instant it touched ground it turned into rain. So actually we had a very muddy xmas. There don't seem to be as many songs written about that. But I had leftovers and no desire to go outside, so it all worked out well. "I'm dreaming of a gray muddy day with leftovers and no reason to leave the apartment..."

This week the power is back on, but I'm still spending my time telling Asia about how nothing can get done because, although the people doing the work are here, the people who insist on approving the work before it gets released are out the rest of the year. Company policy is to designate backups for times when people are on vacation, but we don't have enough remaining employees to double-team every position. Also, people mistakenly think they can protect their jobs by making themselves an integral part of every process, so that when they take a day off the world notices their absence because things grind to a halt. Regular work should resume next week.

And people wonder why I hate the holidays. Life doesn't change for me, except that I exhaust myself getting very little done. But at least there is great parking.

5 comments:

Avitable said...

You should just move in to your office so you always have that one great parking spot.

Jay said...

Well at least you stayed busy most of the time.

Anonymous said...

Yeah for parking! Hang on baby... the holidays are almost over.

Grant said...

Avitable - the tiny work refrigerator couldn't hold all of my insulin and beer, but I have considered just leaving my car here and taking cabs so I can retain the parking space.

Jay - my employers ensure that staying busy is not a problem for me.

PAMO - next week begins what I call the get back to work season.

Maundering mutterer said...

We had a muddy Xmas too - and its supposed to be midsummer. Hope you'll have some fun (blow a squeaker or something) to celebrate the New Year!