Every year about this time of year (i.e. about 3-5 working days before Xmas) , I have noticed a certain phenomenon everywhere I’ve worked.
That phenomenon is that while most, but not all of the rank and file are starting to focus on the upcoming holidays and any vacation time they’re taking off, and generally catching up on deferred work items, socializing and getting in the holiday spirit, there are ALWAYS a number of relentlessly work-focused people setting meetings, demanding things, and replying to emails and stuff in ways that force the rest to get out of their holiday coasting mode and actually do work.
I know that we’re all being paid to work, but there’s also a general feeling among most people that anything that can wait, should wait until early January. Except for this crowd, who seems to be operating like business as usual. The only thing that stymies them on Xmas Eve and the 26th of December is that the vast majority of people are off, and nobody will answer.
What’s with this attitude? It seems to mostly affect upper staff and mid-management more than executives in my experience. Some people are definitely engaging in some sort of lame-assed virtue signaling (“look how productive I am pestering people on the 22nd of December!”), but others seem absolutely oblivious to the idea that nobody actually wants to have a damned meeting on Dec 22nd unless it’s absolutely necessary. It’s like work trumps everything else for them.
Anyone have any insight into this? It’s always been something I’ve scowled at, and now that I’m actually part of that management strata, I’m not getting it. In fact, I’ve been more or less pushed into scheduling a meeting next week by some of these types when I otherwise would have let it ride until January.
The first thing that came to my mind is what a miserable time of year this can be for so many people.
Maybe work is the one place they can distract themselves, feel productive, and – to whatever degree – take the focus off of that which is the source of so much pain.
From what you know of the other-than-work lives of any of these people, does that ring true to any degree ?
You posted this in General Questions, but I don’t think there’s a GQ-style answer to your question. I think what you’re going to get is mainly speculation.
As @DavidNRockies suggested, some people don’t like the holidays, or don’t have much going for them outside of work.
Some people like the holidays just fine, but they don’t like “goofing off” at work. They would rather do actual work at work than take the trouble of going in to work but not get anything done.
Sometimes there are things that really need to get done by the end of the year. Or, if they don’t get done, there will be a large unpleasant workload waiting for them when you come back to work in January, and they don’t want that hanging over their heads during the holidays.
Some people are just work-focused in general, for all the various reasons there are for that.
All of the above are good answers. I’ll add that some people aren’t as excited about the “holidays” as others. For example, maybe they aren’t close with their family, or for whatever other reason aren’t looking forward to a vacation.
Take me as an example. I like a nice relaxing day off as much as anyone else. But as a Jew, I have no particular need or desire for Christmas to be the day that I can stay home, and certainly not Christmas Eve. I’ve even worked on such holidays, if I can get a different day off instead. I am no one’s example of a workaholic, but it’s nice to get a lot of work done because the place is so quiet and interruption-free.
Second of all, I would think that it would make more sense to ask what’s up with everyone else. Those folks are looking forward to their vacations, too… but vacation hasn’t started yet, and there’s still work to be done, and so we keep on working. We’re operating like business as usual because it is business as usual.
I mean , I wouldn’t schedule a large meeting next week because a lot of people are on vacation and therefore unavailable - but why wouldn’t I meet with the few people who directly report to me if they are working?
I don’t understand why people who are working on December 22 are any more opposed to having a meeting on that day than they are to any other. @bump , what exactly do you expect to do at work the last few days before Christmas ? If I’m going to sit around all week and coast, I’d much rather just take the week off and not have to get up early and commute to the office.
Because if something needs to be done by December 31st, it needs to be done by December 31st. And if some important meeting is coming up in the third week of January and that person’s Board wants to see progress or objectives met, then that’s what they expect. Holidays don’t change any of that. Deadlines are deadlines. Expectations are expectations.
I agree with Chronos. I’m certainly aware that people tend to slack off a bit before a holiday, but the OP’s assertion that this is the accepted norm, and people who DON’T slack off are somehow at fault, is frankly shocking to me. Do you also skip work every Friday, because “anything that can wait, should wait until Monday”? A work day is a work day. If your employer expected you to not do any work that day, it would be marked as a holiday, not a work day. I would turn the question around and ask “What’s with this attitude”, that employees can choose not to work some days just because they have other stuff going on in their life and don’t feel like working?
If it includes payroll, then sure. Otherwise, like you said, you are being paid to work.
For me, this is more or less the busiest time of the year. And before I got into this, I was in restaurants, and then this was pretty much the busiest time of the year. I worked for a little while at UPS, and this was the busiest time of the year.
I’ve never been in an environment where December and around the holidays was a time to go into “coasting mode”. I think that that attitude is more the exception than the rule.
I’ve been in the consulting business for over 25 years and we would actually see a slightly different pattern. Many clients wanted to have all possible billing (for the work we are providing to them) complete and submitted prior to early December. For example, they would request that we bill them for all work performed in that year by December 10. We would, therefore, be estimating billable hours for December 11 through December 31. It was inevitable that we would over-estimate, especially since most clients would find reasons to cancel meeting, delay project goals, etc., as the holidays approached. Strangely, they would then reject any adjusted bills we submitted in the new year to reflect our actual work in December.
TL;DR version: “Bill us by 12/10 for the work you think you’ll do. And don’t bother changing it later, because it’s a PITA to change invoices we have already approved.”
My current employer shuts down entirely from 16 December to 2 January. (Southern Hemisphere, so it’s summer holidays, and this is pretty common for many jobs here outside of essential services and retail.) But I’ve noticed something similar happening in the last week before the shutdown - some people start new projects, set up meetings, send out requests for things that could have waited until the new year. I’ve noticed the same thing on Friday afternoons on a smaller scale.
My theory is that it’s not workalholism necessarily, but rather that people want to clear out their mental in-tray. A task has been sitting on their mind for a while, and they want to get rid of it before the holiday. By scheduling a meeting or making a request of someone else, they’ve done something and now it’s Somebody Else’s Problem.
It depends on the job, but a lot of places have basically been ghost towns the last two weeks of December and summer Fridays in offices I’ve worked in.
It obviously depends on the job duties. In the financial industry, there’s definitely jobs that have shit that needs to be done by December 31. But if you’re setting up meetings for late December for a deep dive into 2021 strategising, mostly shit that no one except executives care about, that’s not gonna earn you a place on my nice list, that can wait for the January blahs.
I’m a physician. There are things I can slack off on, but there are things that I absolutely cannot let slide. And I expect my colleagues and co-workers to to their best to aid me in those crucial matters, regardless of the Calendar.
I think I need to be more clear; not just work, but actively scheduling meetings, etc… to try and get work done either during the last few days before an enormous proportion of people will be out on vacation, or immediately afterward. I mean, I could try to squeeze a bunch of stuff in right now, but to what end? None of it can’t wait until after the vacation.
It’s not necessary stuff; I work in IT, and I know that there are things that need doing and deadlines that need meeting. But a lot of what I’m talking about is more along the lines of having the attitude that say… Xmas Eve is “just another workday” and scheduling meetings at 4 o’clock that afternoon (yes, I’ve had people do that).
I mean, this year, I’d fully expect this week to be busy. But it’s the non-essential stuff on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of next week that are a bit perplexing to me.
I guess I just get the impression out of some of these people that they’d schedule meetings and try to drive things forward on the day after Thanksgiving if it wasn’t a corporate holiday. It’s like work is more than just a means to get paid to them. Which is an attitude I don’t get; there’s no more loyalty between employers and employees these days that would make that a good strategy.
Exactly! That’s what I’m talking about too- that sort of thing where everyone’s kind of holiday-focused, and someone’s trying to seriously drive something, it’s a bit hard-charging for me, to say the least.
If work is nothing but a means to get paid to you, that’s sad. It means that you derive no enjoyment or satisfaction from your work, nor do you think that what you do contributes to the world or makes things better for anyone else.
Yes, I know there are jobs like that, and that some people have to (or want to) take them. I’m glad that’s not me.
There are some people who only care about their work and making money.
Sometimes there are projects that are just scheduled with an early January due date.
One thing I’ve found working in “tech companies” is that they do a lot of “virtue signaling” that people are “so busy”. Long hours, weekend work, tight deadlines, hit the ground running, etc etc. But then they try to “virtue signal” that they have a “great work life balance” so senior management tells people to “user their unlimited vacation time”, and “weekend work is counter productive”. Of course they haven’t changed the deadlines so the math never adds up.
A lot of this -
I would be completely fine if the whole office closed down for two weeks (the way that school did) and all of the schedules had been adjusted accordingly, that would be great. But it wasn’t and they weren’t and so while I don’t expect people to be fully engaged (because I’ve met people), completely slacking off for two weeks will be a disaster in January.
And the executives that seem to not mind now will certainly mind next year.