Thanksgiving Holiday 2007

We just ended one of the happiest weeks in our organization's support calendar. Of course, I’m talking about the U.S. Thanksgiving week! =)

During the weekdays before Thanksgiving Day and the weekend adjacent to it, we had a much lower case volume, thus translating to a fewer support that we need to do. Stress level is definitely down during this week, and we’re able to catch up with other responsibilities (research, lab recreates, collaboration, etc.) that we normally do for our customers.

It is quite fascinating to note that U.S. Networking Professionals (or the general American population) leave their work and worries behind, and enjoy this holiday. Sometimes, we even feel that Thanksgiving Day is a lot more important than Christmas Day or the New Year’s Day.

Even our counterparts in the U.S. are taking leave from work. Thus, our Australian and European counterparts are obliged to extend their support hours earlier and later respectively. Too bad for them. =P

Most of our U.S. customers want to have an extended vacation that coincides to this holiday, thus they tend to finish a lot of their work before the holiday. This also translates to a spike in case volume the week before the holiday. We specially feel the effect during weekends (when they are already ‘cramming’ to finish scheduled network tasks).

And within the holiday week itself, we receive a lot of Out-of-Office (OOO) advisories from our customers noting that they will be in extended vacation and they won’t be able to continue with any cases that they left us with.

It is also good to note that we are left with a few of our Australian customers, and a lot of our Asian customers (not that we’re complaining) who are less likely inclined or accustomed to the Thanksgiving holiday. Of course, they don’t even have it as a holiday. =P

Lastly, this Monday, November 26, 2007, we encountered a spike in case volume. This is due to the fact that most U.S. Network Professionals already came back from their holiday vacation. It also means that everyone is now back to the realities of life.

That includes us. So, back to work guys!