Is anybody there?

It was 2001 the last time Christmas fell on a Tuesday, and Tuesday seems like the worst day of the week to have such a major holiday. This is because there is only one working day between a weekend of parties and the Christmas holidays, and I’m sure anyone who can, is not going to be working a full day! Yes, nursing staff and similar will be there all day, but I’m thinking of office workers. My impression is that if there are people in the office today (and reading this blog), they are going to be hoping to get away at lunch time. And I’m sure many offices are not going to bother to even pretend to open.

Then there’s Thursday and Friday. Many people will be recovering on Thursday and so won’t go in. And if you’ve had four days off already, who wants to turn up on Friday? Not too many people I would think.

Next week looks a bit of a nightmare too. Monday is New Year’s eve, so who wants to go into the office for one day, knowing you have the next day off? So it looks like next Wednesday before any productive work will be done – wow! If you wanted to invade a western country without anyone noticing for over a week, today would be the day. If you wanted to make a terrorist statement, then today is definitely not the day, because, as I said, no-one will notice until the end of next week!

So, if you are in work, what’s left for you to do?

Obviously, if you work on a mainframe you can spend five minutes completing the Arcati Mainframe Yearbook 2008 user survey. That’s located at www.arcati.com/usersurvey08. If you’re at a PR company or vendor/consultancy/service provider, you could fill in the form at www.arcati.com/vendorentry for a free entry in the Yearbook when it’s published in January – to an anticipated audience of 10,000 to 15,000 worldwide.

What else? Well, if you’re an IMS user you can join the Virtual IMS Connection user group at www.virtualims.com. There’s a free newsletter coming out in January for all members, and the next virtual presentation is on the 5th February, when NEON Enterprise Software's Bill Keene will be talking about IMS disaster recovery preparation. If you’re a vendor of IMS-related software, then there are highly-focused advertising opportunities to reach IMS professionals. Contact trevor@itech-ed.com for the early-bird pricing structure.

You can view my corporate greetings card at www.itech-ed.com/xmas07.htm.

Have a good Christmas. And, if you don’t have decorated trees, Father Christmas, and presents where you are, have a good time anyway.