Tales of working on Christmas...

Of course it depends on your circumstances, but I would have let your boss know that he shouldn't be so quick in wanting to get rid of you, lest he finds himself as a witness in the courtroom over an unpaid overtime lawsuit.

 

I f'ed the Hawaii Bowl. Made my 7:30 deadline. That one stinkin' game with neither team from with 2000 miles would have cost me an extra 2 1/2 hours. I just ran a refer that said "for complete coverage of the Hawaii Bowl, visit our website (web address)." Problem solved.

 

Had to come in this afternoon and lay out the Sunday section. Not too bad, just our all-county football team, the NBA games and a couple NFL previews. Easy section, early deadline, short day. I'll be home before the wife is even in bed. Worst part was cutting short lunch and presents with the in-laws so I could hoof it to the office.

However, if I have to hear one more relative ask "Why do you have to work on Christmas?" I might start stuffing their bodies in a sack and dumping them down the chimney. I must've gotten that question 20 times in the last two days.

 

yeah, i fielded those questions on every holiday for 32 years... these same relatives are also the first to complain that their paper was did not publish or was sold out on a holiday. as if the paper wrote and laid out itself.

 

I came to relish working Christmas at one stop. My boss in the two-person sports department always took that week off -- and the next week too.
Since I couldn't comp the day out, I'd get time for working, double time for the holiday and the company had to pay me for the holiday I couldn't take.
Yup, triple time. Twenty years ago, and it still worked out to like $240 for the shift.

 

Yep the OT is nice, to an extent. Too much of anything isn't a good thing.

One "tradition" we've established is to run our top 10 local stories of the year package the Sunday between Christmas and New Year's. Lots of photos. Eats up two pages on a day when I had too much space and too little content.

 

Exactly. It was amazing watching the light bulb come on in my dad's head a few years ago when I said, "Do you like reading your paper Christmas morning? Yes? Well who do you think puts it together?"

 

I was given desk shifts for Christmas Eve, Christmas night and New Year's Eve one year. Nobody else on staff had to work even 2 of the 3; somehow I got all 3.

What was worse was that it was the first Christmas I was married, and my wife was spending her first Christmas away from her family (who she's very close with but they live on the other side of the country) because we didn't want to get in the habit of being separated for the holiday. So while I was pasting the PGA schedule on the agate page, my wife was home alone for Christmas Eve and Christmas night, and it depressed her. I felt awful.

 

I'm the only person from editorial on our site working this weekend. And I was diagnosed with pneumonia on Friday.

Can't breathe. Can't stop coughing. Every cough rips my sides out and my chest apart and makes me piss myself.

Oh, it's been a great weekend.

 

I'm sensing that's not your true feelings about the whole experience.

 

Actually, it's fine. I'm lying in bed on my laptop, working up photos and turning the site. If I weren't working, I'd be lying in bed on my laptop. Or maybe asleep.

The work hasn't affected me at all. Aside from having to plan my naps more judiciously.

But the actual coughing and sneezing and pissing? Not so great. And how I wish I were exaggerating.

 

Roll tide.