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Christmas and the skeleton staff

Posted in General, Technology on December 24, 2007 at 12:04 pm

So thinksecret.com will no longer be published according to their post Apple, Think Secret settle lawsuit. An amicable settlement? Is this a win for the big Apple or for the lowly Blogger – may be will never know. John Naughton from the Observer talks about this short but sweet statement in his article User-friendly Apple shows a blogger its ruthless core. For something like a Blog to really catch the attention of a huge corporate only re-inforces my point that Blogging is a worthwhile activity and not, as some naysayers might have you believe, a complete waste of time. Personally I find Blogging a great addition to my everyday activities and it has certainly improved my life in a number of areas, both at work and socially. If you are thinking of starting a Blog yourself, but have reservations, you should read Why Blogging is not a waste of time.

Doing the job I do - sometimes I get sent some odd things but imagine my surprise when A missile launcher arrived in the post this morning. Mind you, on the flip side, I am still waiting for my prize to arrive from the Adobe Creative License Tour ‘Prize Draw’ back in November but as the months slowly tick by I am running out of people to contact at Adobe as well as any enthusiasm I had for the prize at the beginning – I just hope the book arrives before the next major release of Creative Suite otherwise the book is going to be out of date – and there was I hoping to give it a good read over the Christmas break. Now I may have to try and re-install Windows Vista instead!

While we’re all tucking into our turkey dinner this year and snoozing after the Christmas pud, spare a thought for all those heroes whose work and efforts often go unrecognised. The skeleton staff’ support staff, call centre staff, field engineers, shop staff, petrol pump attendants, media people (especially the writers), emergency services, and public servants who are all there trying to make our lives a little bit easier while we lay around on the sofa waiting for the Queens big speech. Talking of those public servants who have been taking a hammering recently: I missed the post on Saturday and the Postman left a missed delivery card - this was an important present that I had been working on for ages (courtesy of Snapfish who managed to get my late order out before the big day) but to my surprise the Postman redelivered the package on Sunday morning. If someone you know falls ill over Christmas or New Year, or has one too many ales, and ends up in the waiting area of a hospital somewhere think of all the people that are making that happen - the ones you see and the ones you don’t. There is all this ubiquitous technology around us that is put to great use and that we take for granted every single day - but behind that technology are people - people who are working hard and whose work is often also taken for granted.

So to all those who may be at work on Christmas day and those whose work often goes unacknowledged but is so important especially at this time year - thank you for making my Christmas merry.

Best wishes to you all and Merry Christmas.