Silly Season

Christmas definately is the silly season, work proves that every year when they try and push 3 weeks of work out in 1 week. The processes they have in place can barely cope week to week and the sudden volume increase is always problematic.  This usually ends up in staff working massive hours just so the customers stay happy.

Of course you have all the silly sales on at this time of year, and to be honest a large volume of these are just marketing gimmicks - you don't win with sale items as they still make a sizeable profit as it has been proven that some items have up to a 300% mark up so when you save 10% they still make a killing.  When you buy someone that special present you also spend weeks hiding it or having it pre-wrapped just so they don't know what it is.  The example of that was today whilst at a friends house he opened the cars boot (or trunk) to put in the shopping we had just purchased and he had to quickly put it down when he noticed his son's present there on top of everything as his son was just around the side of the car.

If that isn't enough there are all the christmas parties, not just work ones either, sports clubs and  social groups have them as well so you can actually spend the whole time going from party to party.  This is very tiring and of course there is Christmas Day... the family are around and you have to find places for everyone to sit and so forth a truly crazy time if you ask me.  Here in Australia we have another tradition in many families - backyard cricket... usually the kids are the ones playing but fathers and uncles sometimes join in for fun when they've had a few too many drinks.

Alas Boxing Day isn't always a rest day in Australia... it was designed to give workers who worked Christmas Day a day of rest for themselves.  Again in Australia we have tradition and many call that the Boxing Day Test Cricket, many families will sit around the TV watching the first day of the 5 day event and naturally lunch will consist of whatever was left over from the previous days festivities.