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25-Dec. Shout-out to everyone else at work

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: 25-Dec. Shout-out to everyone else at work

#121

Post by midasuni »

titanomachy wrote: post #76
davemtl wrote: post #61

I also drew the short straw for on-call this weekend. I've probably already clocked up 10hrs following a network failure at one of our datacenters. I'm not an essential worker, but I want to pass on my Christmas wishes to people who are; doctors, nurses, healthcare assistance, ambulance crews, fire crews, police and everyone else who keeps the world turning over the Christmas holiday. Thank you all for your hard work…

In my opinion “essential worker” is a very blurred line. People depend on technology and the internet. There are real consequences when things stop working.

In the U.K. there was a lot of yabbering about “key workers” during lockdown. Nobody even mentioned the people working in power plants.

Re: 25-Dec. Shout-out to everyone else at work

#123

Post by xeromal »

throwaway984393 wrote: post #120
xeromal wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to do a patch tuesday for 6 hours even though I had the whole week off. Ugh.`

My whole vacation got cancelled :(

That is pretty freaking miserable and would annoy me to no end. Are they going to let you take off your week at some point in the future?

Re: 25-Dec. Shout-out to everyone else at work

#124

Post by midasuni »

hashimotonomora wrote: post #106
dlivingston wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yawn. Christmas is ostensibly a religious holiday, yet those from all faiths and cultures celebrate it. I am an atheist and it is my favorite holiday by far. I know Jews and Buddhists and Hindus who celebrate. It is a cultural holiday, not a religious holiday. This is a very important point.

Christmas is literally Christ’s mass. If there’s a widespread religious celebration it’s that.

Christmas is literally a festival in the middle of winter with Turkey and family and lights and trees and a jolly fat man and presents and cheesy music and films we’ve watched a dozen times, nothing to do with religion.

Your mileage may vary, and if it does involve religion good for you, but for millions it doesn’t, but it’s still the most wonderful time of the year.

Re: 25-Dec. Shout-out to everyone else at work

#125

Post by cortesoft »

ianai wrote: post #47
omarhaneef wrote: post #29

There are lots of people for who Xmas isn’t a thing — different background etc. I always thought it would make sense to let us handle Xmas duty so others — people for whom it really, really matters - can do their Xmas stuff. I used to try to volunteer for this when it was relevant (really, it’s not a thing for me), but I rarely saw a systematic opportunity to do so. I think it gets harder as time goes because the rep…

That seems like an ok sentiment when it’s opt-in. At a former place of work, I would be assigned all holidays and hours people didn’t want to work because “I’m a single guy with no kids/fiancé”. I’d almost exclusively work those shifts alone, too. It was absolutely based on who stroked who’s ego the most. This was for little more than minimum wage in a tech department and no such thing as differentials. Glad that’s o…

There is a difference between assuming single people don’t care about holidays and realizing that not everyone celebrates the same holidays.

Re: 25-Dec. Shout-out to everyone else at work

#126

Post by throwaway984393 »

xeromal wrote: post #123
throwaway984393 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My whole vacation got cancelled :(

That is pretty freaking miserable and would annoy me to no end. Are they going to let you take off your week at some point in the future?

I hope so. No official word yet but managers are "looking into it", it's a big company, end of the year, etc.

What makes it feel like crap is how it's way more difficult to patch than it should be because we're never given time to clean up tech debt and every team does things differently, so everything is a mess. I actually haven't taken time off all year and feel pretty burnt out. Maybe time to polish the resume.

Re: 25-Dec. Shout-out to everyone else at work

#127

Post by grogenaut »

omarhaneef wrote: post #29

There are lots of people for who Xmas isn’t a thing — different background etc. I always thought it would make sense to let us handle Xmas duty so others — people for whom it really, really matters - can do their Xmas stuff. I used to try to volunteer for this when it was relevant (really, it’s not a thing for me), but I rarely saw a systematic opportunity to do so. I think it gets harder as time goes because the rep…

When I worked in Amazon retail many of the India and China immigrants happily and proactively traded Christmas and New Years oncall for black Friday/Cyber Monday. Or many other holidays. Heck the kids who were spending their first holidays away from home did it to have something to do.

Pre pandemic there was always a cool feel of working a chill holiday day with just a few others, compared to the insanity of those massive scale days. You also got to work on whatever you wanted as managers didn't plan anything.

Re: 25-Dec. Shout-out to everyone else at work

#128

Post by midasuni »

atlgator wrote: post #107
Gene_Parmesan wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is more to life than how much one can produce, surely. You may be interested in a little piece of literature called A Christmas Carol - the core of the message is as accurate now as it was when it was written, if not more so, and I personally believe that core applies whether you celebrate Christmas or not. (I'm obviously being a little facetious as I assume most if not all of us are intimately familiar with th…

+1 for the Patrick Stewart version

Patrick Stewart is great, but for me the definitive version is the one with Michael Caine

Re: 25-Dec. Shout-out to everyone else at work

#129

Post by midasuni »

CyberRabbi wrote: post #24

Many of my HFT friends are busy working today preparing for the markets to open on Monday. Lots of people from a diversity of circumstances are working today, I appreciate all their work!

Thus proving the hypothesis that “all jobs that need to work at Christmas are truly important” to be rubbish.

Re: 25-Dec. Shout-out to everyone else at work

#130

Post by xeromal »

throwaway984393 wrote: post #126
xeromal wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is pretty freaking miserable and would annoy me to no end. Are they going to let you take off your week at some point in the future?

I hope so. No official word yet but managers are "looking into it", it's a big company, end of the year, etc. What makes it feel like crap is how it's way more difficult to patch than it should be because we're never given time to clean up tech debt and every team does things differently, so everything is a mess. I actually haven't taken time off all year and feel pretty burnt out. Maybe time to polish the resume.

Yeah, my company treats me very well so I was definitely willing to patch this thing during an unfortunate timing. If they were always treating me like shit, I polish up the resume too. You should do it.
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