I only have once. At CBGB’s. Had Xmas with my family, then took the train into Manhattan for the 8pm to 2am shift. Featuring a somewhat punk rock Santa doing a midnight show. Who knew that’s what he did once the presents were delivered.
Same year I worked New Years. Ya know people around comlimentary champagne can be scary.
So any stories, from the folks who save us from the holiday realted accidents (falling headlong into a figgy pudding, death by Yule log) to those of us who serve drinks for the rest of you, thereby making holiday mortality more likely.
I’m working (not now…in a few hours). I worked last night too.
I’m in journalism, specifically layout/design. So as long as people want newspapers, I have to work the night before. I knew what I was getting into, but it’s my first Christmas away from everyone I know, and it’s not going the greatest so far. I suppose when I go into work it’ll at least keep my mind busy.
Not working this holiday, but I’ve pulled my share of the xmas duty over the years. Tho I am technically on backup call today, I don’t expect they’ll have to contact me.
Back when I worked in Japanese tourism, I routinely worked Christmas Day. You see, in Hawaii, the Christmas rush for Japanese tourists starts on or around Christmas Day (the Americans arrive a few days later). I didn’t mind it. In fact, since the rest of my family was scattered among Pennsylvania, England, and, for a while, Germany, I actually preferred to work it. That way, I’d be too busy to get homesick. I’m afraid I don’t have any interesting stories to tell, though.
I’m Jewish so I’d love to work Xmas day and then use the holiday time on a different day. One place that I used to work allowed this so I would go in on Xmas day every year and do a general clean up of my files and desk (this was in the not so long ago days when most of my files were on paper) and catch up on loose ends. There were a very small handful of Jews and Jehovah’s Witnesses who would take part in this “tradition” there.
I don’t, but my wife does it every year. Thanksgiving as well. The phone company has to have some coverage of the network.
She couldn’t care less about either holiday and volunteering for those days guarantees that she won’t work on New Years or July 4 (her birthday). Not to mention she gets double time for those days.
Whilst I was at university, I worked in a BBQ chicken takeaway shop. We did chickens ‘on order’ for Christmas Day, however we always cooked plenty of extra chickens which saved many a family’s Christmas lunch…cue frazzled Dads running in, whilst Mum is presumably still in the kitchen, fighting through the smoke…
All the time. My facility is staffed 24/7 and we have a pretty small pool of specialized manpower. I’ve propably worked Christmas roughly every other year for a decade and a half. Last night on Christmas Eve I was working until 10 p.m…
I am off today, though. Good thing too, as I have to make a ham in several hours ;).
Does a country where Christmas is not an official holiday count? 'Cos all of us Israelis are (well, were; it’s 7 PM here) working today. Just another day.
Mr. SCL is a nurse and has worked most of the Christmas Days since we have been married. We don’t have children, so he would usually volunteer to work Christmas morning so people with kids could have that time for gift-opening. He was scheduled to have this Christmas off, but the mother of one of the other nurses on his case died unexpectedly Thursday night and the schedule was changed. We don’t mind - what that poor lady is going through losing her mother is much worse than missing a holiday we really don’t celebrate all that much anyway.
I’m working today, without pay because there’s no real need, but then I never celebrate xmas. Might as well work when the staff is off, to get caught up without interruptions.
As a Statey Potatey, I don’t have to work Christmas Day, but I have in the past. Christmas Eve is the big holiday celebration in my family, when we open presents and have an appetizer buffet with champagne, and then go to late church. Christmas day is Santa presents for the kids, but then just a big turkey dinner like Thanksgiving. As long as I could have X-mas Eve off, I never minded working X-mas day. I was happy to have the hours, the slow shift, and in some jobs the overtime pay.
I’m Jewish, and take off for plenty of other holidays (Shavuot, anyone?), but I don’t care one way or the other about working on Christmas. Now I’m in a master’s program, with formal breaks and everything, but when I was in a PhD program, I’d work in lab on Christmas as long as it wasn’t a Saturday. I had the whole place to myself - I’d blast my own music and sing and bop around the lab, and I could have all the microscope time I wanted! Woo!
Today was the first time I’ve ever worked Christmas day; it wasn’t bad I get double time and it didn’t get busy until around noon. I got Christmas Eve off for the first time since I started working at 16. My family does everything on Christmas Eve.
I have to go in at 7pm tonight, and get off at 7 am. My roomate woked this morning. We both work in the medical field though, I at a nursing home. For some reason those old folks just don’t hop up and take care of themselves on the hoildays. :dubious:
Back in my gas station days, I always worked Thanksgiving and Christmas. As an hourly employee I got paid 2.5 times my regular rate and always got tons of food from customers that felt sorry for me (some of them were cute girls )
Generally the other employees would want to work the morning shift so they could have lunch/dinner with the family, so I got up late and opened presents before work, then spent the day flirting and selling AA batteries and milk.
When I had my own station I worked those days to give my employees the time off. Had a Turkish employee that was more than happy to work with me for extra pay, but no one else wanted the money.
Seems I always ended up working New Years Day as well, but that was against my will.
'Cos all of us Israelis are (well, were; it’s 7 PM here) working today. Just another day.