I am just curious who else is working on Christmas day.

I am kind of excited too work it to be honest! We have dinner buffets at 3pm and 5pm so I will be working 12-8. I am working with my favorite people in the kitchen (minus 1) and I get to help make Christmas dinner really special for about 500 people. I know it will be fun to work with everyone and to get to talk to the guests and joke around.

Not I anymore, but the place I worked at was staffed on a 24/7 basis and for many years I did have to work on Christmas, particularly if there was a big world crisis going on or I was working in one of these 24 hour operation centers. Whether and when we worked on Christmas or any other holiday was simply determined by our shift rotation schedule. By the luck of the draw I don't remember being at work on Christmas Eve which is the big celebration in my family, but I worked several times on Chistmas Day and my family just worked around whatever 8 hours I was on duty.

The time between Christmas and New Years is traditionally one of the deadest times of the year in our business and very little of world wide importance happened during the years I pulled this duty. Yet we still had to be there.

One year, when my son was about 5, (he's now 45) he got a gyroscopically powered car for Christmas, known as an SSP car (pictured.) When our team leader asked me what my kids got for Christmas that year I mentioned the SSP car. My boss asked me to bring it in as he was curious to see it. The building I worked in had "the worlds longest unobstucted office corridor...over 1000 feet long with smooth terrazo floors...and one of those corridors was right outside our office. So on the midnight shift when things were dead, we tried out the car in this corridor. It went down the corridor at a tremendous speed and eventually we broke it as it hit a door jamb with parts flying everywhere. My boss gave me $20 to replace my son's car (they cost $10) and asked me to get one for him too. As it turned out when I went to get the cars, that toy store was going out of business and was selling it's stock of SSP cars for only $2 each, so I bought 10 of them, gave 2 to my son and brought the rest into work.

So with the door to our office open so we could hear the phones, my team members and I were racing the cars up and down this long corridor.

In those days, the number three man in our agency after the director and deputy director was a two-star general who was the Director of Operations, in short our "big boss." He was a very popular officer. He had a habit of coming in during evening and midnight shifts to thank the people who did this work during holidays. And that night was the night he came to thank our team...except we were racing the SSP cars down the corridor as he came in. There was absolutely no bluffing our way out of this, we were caught red handed.

"So what's going on here?" he said.

When all else fails, you tell the truth..."You see sir, my son got one of these cars for Christmas and we discovered that with such a long corridor, we have the ideal place to "test" them." So I revved up the car and sent it on its way down the corridor.

The car careened down the corridor bouncing from side to side on the walls. "Look at that sonovabitch go" the general said.

"Would you care to try it sir?"

And so he did and for the next 30 minutes or so our team and the general were racing these cars at 3:00 AM down a hall in one of the most secret places in the entire US Government.

The general then wished us a good holiday and thanked us and our families for our service, but said "Not one word about this as long as I'm assigned to this agency!"

Jon

I'm at work right now. My daughter is spending today with her dad, so I volunteered to come in. I figured I might as well be at work and let my coworkers spend the day with their families. So far it's been pretty dead and I'm getting double pay, so I can't complain.

~*~Punkgirl~*~

Long live punk rocK

I did and I loved it. My work is so relaxing.

Not me but I do have to work New Year's Eve and I couldn't be more angry about it...

oh my goodness work was terrible!! Non stop busy for 5 hours. I think I ran the equivalent to a marathon. It is one thing to have a buffet for 4 hours and have 500 people show up. It is another at 3pm 250 show up, and at 5pm the other 250 show up. Everyone hit the dessert table at the exact same time and I could hardly keep up.

Now it is 9:30 and I am still up and I work at 5am tomorrow :/

I also work New years eve AND new years day.

My BF worked from 4 AM to 4 PM in the afternoon. I was hoping for a nice Christmas Dinner but he fell asleep by 7 PM. We did have left overs from last nights dinner party.

I had the day off thank goodness.

Good job to everyone who worked through Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. Good luck to people working New Years Eve.

I worked 7 pm to 7 am Christmas eve, and am currently at work now (11 pm to 7 am). Christmas eve night I got to play Santa for my patients (I work in a psychiatric hospital), and lay stockings at the foot of everyone's bed and put their presents under the tree. Didn't get to see them open the stockings/presents, but I'm sure they enjoyed them. I always feel bad for so
For some of these guys as alot of them get sad around the holidays because family has "forgotten" about them (or basically just doesn't care) or they live too far away. Some of them are fortunate enough to go on home visits for a few days though, that's always nice.

Like Chaconne (Jon) I also work for a US Govt agency. I am on vacation for the next two weeks. At the moment I am back home in upstate NY visiting frinds and family for the holidays.

While not at work per se, I did have to take my govt issued laptop and BlackBerry - which I am required to answer, with me 1.) In case something happens and I am needed, and 2.) becasue the e-mail servers we are on have been chopped down to almost nothing, I have to download e-mail every evening to keep my e-mail account from locking up. Real pain in the rear end.

As Jon said, this time of year is dead for our work also. So enjoying getting some rest and thinking about what I want to accomplish in the new year.

I did! I volunteered to so DH and I had a good excuse to escape his family. We had a wonderful Christmas ALONE. It was easily both our best Christmas we've each had.

Looks like I am working New Years eve and New Years Day....

I'm a nurse at a hospital so I worked both Christmas eve and Christmas day (well - night shift haha) but it was actually enjoyable! I worked in the nursery the first night and all of us on the unit had a potluck dinner at midnight and then christmas day i had patients that all had christmas babies so it was a great night plus the hospital served us free dinner.

Not Christmas, but I will be working new year's eve and new year's day, shift ending at midnight both days. No complaints though: I just got about 1 1/2 weeks off around Christmas.

Here's something that REALLY sucks:

I worked 3pm to midnight Christmas Eve.

I worked 3pm to midnight Christmas Day.

I work all evening shifts the rest of the week.

I work 7am to 4pm New Years Day.

All evenings, and then a day shift on the worst day to work a day shift.

Sigh...

(I don't mind working Christmas, but why on earth did they schedule me on a day shift for New Years?)

Edit: On the plus side, I didn't have to pay for dinner either night, I got probably 10,000 calories worth of delicious things for free, plus the hospital paying for my dinner on Christmas Day... on the down side I'll have to go to the gym every single day for the next two weeks.

I haven't had a job in a while, but for the year I worked in a grocery store while I still lived at home, I got scheduled to work EVERY holiday. Because I worked days, and most of the other people on days had their own families and events that they were in charge of, and he knew I wasn't in charge of anything, so I was the day representative on every single holiday. :/

I worked 7p-7:30a on Thanksgiving
7p-7:30a on Christmas Eve (into day)
And I'm working 7p-7:30a on New Years Eve.

Hoooooray for me. But honestly, we had a good time. Ate A LOT.

Our office is closed over the Christmas period. But when I worked behind a bar I quite often worked Christmas Eve, Boxing Day, New Year's Eve etc. I quite liked it - raked in the tips, my mates were usually there, and on New Year's Eve we could get pissed behind the bar which was funny. I managed a six or seven hour bar shift in heels and a prom dress too, go me!

This is the first I haven't worked Christmas or New Year. Like Louise I've worked in lots of bars and pubs so had to work then.

I always offered to do Christmas day as I was one of the few without kids and I thought they needed to be home more than me.

Last year I worked a 49hour shift that ended at 8am on Christmas morning, I was then back at 8am Boxing morning for a 48 hours shift and worked overnight on NYE. Not fun with a load of unhappy teenagers!

This year I actually broke up on the Friday before Christmas Eve and went back today (29th) I'm off Sat and Sun then back in on Monday. I'm super happy I got so much time off! but I'll probably have to work it all next year

MOOM