23% of IT Workers Spend Thanksgiving With Coworkers 111
itwbennett writes "A timely CareerBuilder survey finds that 23% of IT pros spend the holiday with coworkers, either in the office or at another location. But the findings vary widely by city. In Boston, for example, you're pretty sure to be on your own for the holiday — only 6% of coworkers there nosh together. While in Atlanta (35%) or Dallas (30%) things are downright chummy."
I will spend thanksgiving with my co-workers too (Score:2, Offtopic)
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...and there won't even be neither turkey nor booze, over here in Europe *g
(emphasis mine) At least, I hope for you there aren't any grammar-Nazis over there...
Re:I will spend thanksgiving with my co-workers to (Score:4, Funny)
...and there won't even be neither turkey nor booze, over here in Europe *g
(emphasis mine) At least, I hope for you there aren't any grammar-Nazis over there...
No, the eurozone has effectively expunged "Nazi" from their vernacular, if the media is to be believed
Source [go.com]
Money quote:
Users were warned not to take bids on Nazi items from people in France, Germany, Austria or Italy because of laws in those countries. Users with French- or German-language Web browsers also were blocked from searching for Nazi-related items, eBay spokesman Kevin Pursglove said
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No lie it made me smile uncontrollably.
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Bonus points for using "nor" with "neither," though...so close and yet so far...
Re:I will spend thanksgiving with my co-workers to (Score:4, Funny)
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Deathsgiving
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You forget that the tradition of invasion, conquest; and economic,religious, and cultural assimilation was a grand old tradition in Eurasia long before the Americsa were discovered. E.g. Alexander the Great, the Romans, and the Vandals to name but a few. Americans learned at Europeans feet.
Re:I will spend thanksgiving with my co-workers to (Score:4, Insightful)
You forget that the tradition of invasion, conquest; and economic,religious, and cultural assimilation was a grand old tradition in Eurasia long before the Americsa were discovered. E.g. Alexander the Great, the Romans, and the Vandals to name but a few. Americans learned at Europeans feet.
Stop confusing people with historical facts. It's easier to forget the past and blame the present. Really, it's best to blame the present not learning from the past failures.
Re:I will spend thanksgiving with my co-workers to (Score:5, Insightful)
But usually there is some other substitute e.g. Oktoberfest or its equivalent. Just about every culture has some sort of fall harvest festival if they have such a season.
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If we in Europe would have "thanksgiving" holidays for each good thing that's worth giving thanks for throughout history, some countries would have holiday around 50 weeks of the year.
Though to be honest, that seems to be what some countries do anyway, I mean work only two weeks a year (see e.g. Greece).
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This surprises me.
Do THAT many people associate with people they work with outside of the work place???
I mean, for all my working life, I could likely count on my hands the number of times (outside of a company event or company party) that I've actually planned and met and associated with any co-workers outside of the work setting.
I tend to separate my work life from my personal life.
Don't get me wrong, at work, I'm highly sociable, I smile and try to get along with most everyone, but when I walk
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I prefer to keep work and personal life as segregated as possible, I kinda assumed most other folks did too?
About a month ago, I stuck a job advert on Facebook. I'd meant it for friends-of-friends, siblings-of-friends, etc, but that weekend, the girlfriend of one of my closest friend's told me she was encouraging him to apply. I said I'd be a bit uncomfortable if he did, since if he got the job I would have been his manager. (He didn't apply.)
However, two of my colleagues in IT have spouses in other departments.
The Rest (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The Rest (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, that's not fair! I come upstairs for Thanksgiving.
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The remaining 77% spend it in their mom's basement.
Probably, fixing the family computers...
That's my over all, 100%, most hated pet peeve of all time. I can't attend family holidays without someone telling me how slow their computer is, it won't connect to the Internet, is making funny noises, etc., etc. I can visit friends and spend whole evenings not even seeing a computer! But family, oh I' their personal IT Department fro f@#k's sake.
I think it will come to a head this season.
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Say what I say...that "you mostly work with server class computers and operating systems, and you're not that familiar
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This works everytime. Sometimes its even followed by a "Lin-what?"
Re:The Rest (Score:5, Funny)
"Mom! More Hot Pockets!"
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However, you also have to ask....what percentage WANT to work on the holiday?
Some people came from other countries and don't celebrate the same holidays. Others have no family to spend time with or would rather not spend time with theirs. While you could say they should still get the day off too, some days like thanksgiving leave one precious little to do.
I have talked to a number of people who choose to work holidays and like working them.
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Everyone residing in the US (or Canada, for that matter) should be entitled to celebrate Thanksgiving. I would argue that this goes double for immigrants, considering that that's what the Pilgrims were too.
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Entitled? Sure, but you don't address whether they want to. Thanksgiving is generally celebrated with family centered feasting. How much of a celebration is it if you have no family to be with? How much celebration is it to sit alone in your apartment while the kids are off with your former spouse? How much do you care if your family is back in India or down in Mexico and you have nobody to feast with?
You know, I love these holidays. But some people dislike them, get depressed by them, whatever. If you want
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I had a hard time figuring out the right word to use. What I was trying to convey is that even (or especially) if you're a recent immigrant you should consider Thanskgiving to be "your" holiday too. You should not be thinking "oh, I'm going to skip Thanksgiving because it's just for 'Americans'" -- if you're here long enough to rent an apartment rather than a hotel, you're American enough.
Not wanting to celebrate Thanksgiving because you have nobody to celebrate it with is a separate issue, and applies equa
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Hey...a day off is a DAY OFF!!
What do folks do on regular, non-holidays off? Even with no friends or family, you can still take the off time, maybe travel (do a long weekend like most do), or be at home with no one to bother you as you catch up on projects, or maybe play games...whatever you do for fun and relaxati
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Which, of course, is why I pointed out if you wanted to say they should get a day off, like a floating holiday or something...fine but.... I wouldn't even try to compare thanksgiving or xmass to other days. Such a huge portion of the population is doing family things for the day that they really are some of the worst days to have off otherwise.
Actually, I have had years where my family celebrated the day over a weekend to accomidate some family members and was left with nothing to do on those days....I usua
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While you could say they should still get the day off too, some days like thanksgiving leave one precious little to do.
I pity people like that. There's always something to do. Some people live to work, those are the folks you're talking about and they're pathetic. Me, I work to live, and next February I retire.
More books to write, electronics to tinker with, probably buy a new soldering iron and multimeter, slashdot,... hell, I may even sweep my floor and wash the dishes for a change.
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"However, you also have to ask....what percentage WANT to work on the holiday?"
That's when I get the most work done, you insensitive clod! And great download speeds.
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How far does your definition of required jobs go? I get the FD and PD you've got there. No argument. How about gas stations? Should they be open to supply the millions of travelers on the holiday? If yes, then what other service industries should be open? (I'd argue that places like Wal-Mart, Target, etc. - who, instead of competing on price, value, service or something are competing on "how early we open on Thanksgiving", should be closed on the holiday and let their employees see their families since the services they provide are far from critical.) But of course Marketing ruins the world.
No and No.
I don't think that means what you think it means.. (Score:5, Interesting)
If I lived away from family and couldn't justify the travel to visit them for a meal, and if most of my friends were also coworkers, I'd probably spend time with them, like I'd spend time with the off-work anyway.
This is no surprise.
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If I lived away from family and couldn't justify the travel to visit them for a meal, and if most of my friends were also coworkers, I'd probably spend time with them, like I'd spend time with the off-work anyway.
I would have done that in my twenties, but pushing 40 now (ugh) I want nothing to do with my cow-orkers after hours. I'll go to happy hour with the team so I don't look like an unsocial jerk, but otherwise forget it unless there's a charge code to bill my time to.
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Yes.
Not just IT (Score:3)
IT's pro-coworker showing was only 2% less than those put-upon retail workers who may be forced to work right after they finish their plate. The top industry was Transportation and Utilities (28%) and Retail (25%), with IT, Healthcare and Finance tied at 23%.
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Been there. (Score:1)
Really funny story. I was team lead for a small group. I invited everyone over to my house for thanksgiving . We were all young professionals at the time, mostly single. Just as we sat down to eat, the on-call pager went off. Policy was we had 15 minutes to respond. The on-call person waited and called back. "Sorry, just sat down to turkey, please page the backup." For the rest of the meal we repeated going through the on-call list this way, around the table. Sweet :)
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Am part Cherokee, intend to celebrate Thanksgiving.
My coworkers would be preferable to my family (Score:5, Funny)
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To be fair, every human being and interaction makes nerds want to sit alone in a corner of the room. Oh look, grandma's M&M bowl is right there, too.
Was this too vicious? I'm sorry.
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Odds are 99 to 1 that someone in my extended family will go off on a long winded political rant and/or racist screed
Maybe the problem is you.
Really.
I could imagine the typical Slashdotter inciting that kind of conversation with comments about the invisible sky fairy or slaughtering innocent native americans during a gathering of people who might have different opinions about those subjects.
Out in the general public, I find social conservatives and the religious to be way more accepting than the smug angry atheist. The irony.
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However if the atheists are so bad please explain why you have NEVER seen the following headline: "3 were killed and 4 were wounded when agnostics bombed the agnostics"
That kind of statement is EXACTLY what I'm talking about.
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Because the muslims are so busy bombing everyone, that they tend to take up the majority of all the headlines. With the agnostic bombings only being about .00000000001% of the total bombings, they kinda get lost in the frey of all the muslim action out there.
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My parents had little political discourse - his family was party machine Republican and she was a labor Democrat, but neither were very involved in politics outside of actually voting. They were more apt to fight over money than they were politics. Yet they were happily married for 39 years, and much of that was because
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I'll be downstairs beating my nephews in Mario Kart and Cell Damage to avoid those uncomfortable discussions.
There's an explanation (Score:2)
Mandatory overtime/rotating holidays :/
bad stats (Score:2)
And what's the percentage of those workers that are immigrants or of some religion that doesn't let them celebrate? I know we have a lot of people from India, Russia, and Thailand that all love to get the extra overtime during yet another one of your crazy US holidays. Then we have a few Jehovah Whiteness's that also like this time of year. I bet they account for well over 20% of our staff so how knows.
Secondly, most of my Turkey eating co-workers ended up having thanksgiving at various relatives houses the
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>
Since Thanksgiving is non-secular holiday I would be interested to know how many religions forbid it.
I don't know about the religious aspect, but as an immigrant Thanksgiving isn't a holiday which means much to me personally aside from having a couple of days off. I mean I understand an appreciate the significance, and I have been lucky enough to visit families and experience a traditional Thanksgiving meal, but a family orientated holiday doesn't mean a lot when the rest of your family doesn't really care.
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(I'm not American.)
Hasn't Thanksgiving just got tangled up in the currently-fashionable religion? It's a harvest festival [wikipedia.org], which in Europe pre-dates Christianity, and exists in other cultures with a clear harvesting time.
The British version is equally for friends as family. I've missed it for the past three years due to foreign travel, but I used to celebrate with friends (i.e. drink too much).
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What religions don't let practitioners celebrate Thanksgiving? It isn't a holy day like Hannukah or Easter. What do the JWs have against it?
And I was in Bhuddist Thailand for a year, I saw no indication that they would be against a holiday like Thanksgiving. After all, they have the "water festival" which gets really wild and crazy. It's a spring holiday marking the beginning of the rainy season and consists of throwing water at each other. Sometimes barrels full. Sometimes there are pretty bad injuries (li
Transients vs. locals (Score:2)
Dallas, like many cities of the region are colonized by transient populations from far flung areas. Boston is a city of drunks with large families. Are there any more stereotypes we want to use?
Fairest for me (Score:4, Insightful)
One place I was at we were doing 24/7 support so someone had to always be onsite. For holidays our boss just split the day into 3 hour shifts starting at 6am. For only having to work 3 hours wasn't too painful still got most of the day with family/friends. Boss also said it will be dead bring DVDs to watch, just answer phone if it rings. So pretty painless Holiday work.
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Our Christmas ~party was the only day we were allowed to drink at work. We put in a couple hours that morning, then played Open Arena, poker, etc. before heading to a local bar afterwards :)
More false statistics (Score:2)
X% of people SAID this or that. This is another poll that just measures what people think they should say. In Boston, people feel that they should care more about hard work. In the South, people put more emphasis on family and friends.
In the last decade (Score:2)
Thinking of myself I've spent Thanksgiving at work twice because I was traveling overseas and it wasn't practical to fly back for the holiday. It does wonders for perspective through when you encounter people who insist it is a Christian holiday. You then get to explain that there's only two countries on the planet that celebrate it and they don't even celebrate it on the same day. Out of the US the holiday is known for overeating of food and buying too many presents. sigh
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the holiday is known for overeating of food and buying too many presents. sigh
You could say exactly the same about Christmas in the UK. We even choose turkey!
There will be more surveys like this [cpo.org.uk] in the next few weeks:
"Only 10% of adults across the UK think that its religious meaning is the most important thing about Christmas"
"just 4% of 25-34 year olds compared to 20% of those over 60, gave the religious connotations of Christmas a top rating"
"86% of those polled agree that Christmas has become too commercialised"
However, "The YouGov Spending intentions survey for 2013 found that p
Listen... (Score:2)
you guys are great to work with, and I enjoy our D&D games on Sunday afternoons, but I have family to annoy during holidays. You know?
Locality (Score:1)
I've done so 3 times (Score:1)
I've spent 3 Thanksgivings with co-workers, once with a building manager (senior manager), once with a manager of a different department, and once with an administrative assistant that I am still friends with. It was a small company though (around 2,000 employees) so everyone knew each other pretty well.
My current employer is a global bank, everyone here just stabs everyone in the back and is extremely defensive about separating their personal life from work.
I'm just going to stay at home this year, all alo
Of Course (Score:2)
In Boston, for example, you're pretty sure to be on your own for the holiday — only 6% of coworkers there nosh together.
Ah, well that stinks. Too bad people don't have friends, or family, to spend their holidays with...just coworkers. So, if you're in Boston, you'll probably be alone this Thanksgiving because you don't have friends, you don't have family, and your coworkers hate you.
How to say No to cow-workers? (Score:2)
Here in the United States it is coming close to Thanksgiving, a holiday to visit family and be thankful for our many blessings. However corporate culture, as a part of our-business-is-a-family mentality likes to do pot lucks. I will encourage and support anyone that wants to have the pot luck on company time as long as the company does not make me participate. I, like many people, do not regard my co-workers as a "family". I don't feel like investing extra money to feed these people in the name of company-i
Because (Score:2)
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Thanksgiving == distraction (Score:1)
Re:Waaaah (Score:4, Interesting)
Then you might get to have Thanksgiving with your family.
No where in TFA does it say that celebrating with co-workers and family are mutually exclusive. I will be with my family on Turkey Day. Two of my co-workers will be coming over to my house with their families. So I will also be with my co-workers.