Iiiittttsss Chriiiiissssttttmmmaaaaaassss!

Somone mentioned the old Slade hit from the 70's and I haven't been able to get the damn tune out of my head all day! I think that it's going to drive me crazy! (Mamaa, weer allll crazeeee now!)

Many years ago, on 24th December, I would stay right to the end of the day, and last thing would shut down all of the servers. No-one would be back into work until the first week of January, so it seemed pointless to burn all that power for no reason. Plus it gave the equipment a chance to be shutdown properly and restart. This doesn't always hurt as it can clear out any rubbish in memory.

The trouble was that the CEO felt lost without his email - after we gave him VPN access, he wanted to be able to check his email on Boxing Day, just because he could. Then of course, he wanted to be able to check the sales figure - why? There have been no sales and won't be for 2 weeks - but he wants it, so he gets it. And of course, that means all of the ERP systems have to be running. By the time that you work out which systems he might possibly want, it's easier just to leave them all running. (And of course, you know that he is going to phone up to check if the figures have been updated!)

So we don't shut things down anymore - and that means we have to keep an eye on systems to make sure that nothing untoward is happening. As you can imagine, the WAGS take a dim view of this - it only takes a few minutes to logon and make sure that each of the servers is up and running, but the amount of time is not the issue. We have automated alerts to let us know if specific events occur, but it's not quite the same and there is always a possibility that the relevant alert doesn't get through.

So the laptop is going to be hidden away somewhere, and an excuse made to either "take a nap" or "pop down the pub" - then a quick logon just make sure it's still all OK.

Whatever; we are fast approaching the holidays and the end of yet another year (where does the time go?) From my staff and I, the very best wishes to all the readers of this blog and to all the hardworking IT staff wherever you are. Have a great Christmas and try to enjoy whatever time you are allowed to take off. See you all in 2010!