It’s Not Always a Holiday for the IT Department

It’s that time of year again and everyone is busily preparing for the holiday season. There are trips to plan, Black Friday gifts to buy, and last minute preparation for the arrival of friends and family. This time of year sees a measureable increase in economic activity; part-time workers are hired, more shipments are made, and finally – an increase in network utilization.

Behind every merchant website (and network) is a backend system managed by an Administrator or Systems Engineer. These individuals are the ones who must deal with the numerous helpdesk issues – issues that escalate this time of year and are not easily resolved. These support professionals are often tasked with working late into the night and early in the morning. This rigorous holiday schedule is par for the course when it comes to keeping the network functioning smoothly for the customers. Downtime is directly correlated to lost sales, so a sense of urgency exists among the network support personnel.

An Engineer may be in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner, but if they get a call that the network is down they must immediately respond. These IT professionals are the unsung holiday heroes behind network connectivity. This can be a thankless job; customers don’t often recognize how quickly the problem was solved, just that there was a problem in the first place. Most support staff tend to be salaried employees, with after hours work remaining unpaid. You could call these holiday fixes “random acts of IT kindness”.

In gratitude, Centrinet would like to wish a Happy Holidays to all those hardworking IT professionals – thank you for making sure everything continues to run smoothly throughout the season!