Discussion on:

Christmas on the help desk

Our help desk supports customers and field techs around North America, and our products are mainly installed in public safety centers - police, fire, EMS. Therefore, there is no such thing as a holiday. The best process we have found is to rotate the major holidays: I and several others will be working this week (Thanksgiving in the US) and will be off for Christmas week. The opposite is true for the remainder of our office.

Who the support is for. We're mostly offshored.

Maybe you should be asking "How will the Diwali period affect the helpdesk?"

In my old job, we supported employees from all over the world. Being single, I always got screwed by the married couples. But the double-time pay was nice and plus Christmas Day has to be one of the most boring days of the year!
My current job has less than a hundred employees (all on site) so I get Thanksgiving and Christmas off for the first time in over 10 years.

I guess I struck gold when I got this job. I get Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's off! I don't even know what I'm going to do with myself. Oh wait, yes I do. Play WoW and relax. ;P

Good piece. Unfortunately, for those of us who provide all the support, there's no one to pass it off to. So far, however, it's not been too big an issue. I seem to take off a week or so around Christmas every year.