Are there certain times of the year that make your job extra stressful?

In my last job I was an auditor and our fiscal year end was October. No one was allowed off for any reason other than being close to death and you had to prove that. Overtime was mandatory. No one ever smiled in October.
We always had a party on November 1 though!

My husband’s work, when his business was up and running, always vanished after Thanksgiving. Which is awesome, because my birthday is in December, so not only did we have a shitty Christmas every year, but that’s also the time of year when my “Happy birthday! Pay your vehicle tax” letter comes in the mail.

I just got mine for this year, actually… I swear I pay more to the state and insurance companies every year than that car has ever been worth.

Wow Squeeky. I used to be addicted to the show ‘Ice Road Truckers’. Sometimes it kept me on the edge of my seat. And here you are doin’ it all the time. Yikes.

The weather doesn’t influence my life in any way.

Be careful out there!

I supervise a machine shop in a plant that builds seed and feed bins. Right now, harvest time, is the most stressful time of year. There don’t seem to be enough hours in the day to meet the quotas we have to fill.

In another month, when winter has started to set in, we’ll all be sitting around staring at each other because there is nothing to do.

@Skylight I j don’t drive over frozen lakes or rivers,just very icy snow covered mountain highways.

Over the years yes, but now the stress is just all the time. lol
I worked in retail years ago and the holidays are killer, also as a mail carrier. OMG! The packages and delivery scene during the holidays was insane!

I ran a rural mail route up here in the high Sierra foothills out of Fiddletown CA. did all the sorting and casing and package scanning by myself and it took hours to bounce down crazy little mountain roads finding remote houses for package deliveries. The good part was my customers loved me and I came home with more wine and food than you could believe. haha

Midterms and finals. So. Much. Grading.

When we owned our small engine shop (lawn mower sales and service,) business died in November, and didn’t come back to life until March. It was horrible.

I bet you have some horror stories to tell @SQUEEKY2!

@Dutchess_III And some of those stories would make your blood freeze. :)

About a month before final exams until the final grades are recorded and put into the system. You’re trying to keep one semester (the current one) going while getting everything ready for the start of the next semester. Total insanity is the result!

@TheRealOldHippie That does sound rather stressful.

Not more stressful, but certainly busier.
From now, through to the spring, largely due to the early & long dark nights.
Break-ins are more frequent, locks they need a changing/upgrading.

Yeah…the weekdays. (I work at a school.)

Not any more, but when both my retail and baking jobs were horribly busy at Christmas time.

@tedibear…I worked at a grocery store for years, and I remember how some times were horrible (as far as being very crazy), but then there were times that made up for it. Thanksgiving week was insane before the holiday, but I loved to work the Friday after because it was so quiet (nobody wanted to look at food, let alone buy it, and they were all at the mall anyway.)

Back a few years, when I was still working in manholes, the rainy season would add a lot of extra stress, as you can imagine.

When I used to work in retail October through March was more stressful, with Black Friday through Jan 1 being the worst of it. Black Friday through Jan 1 was the worst because we worked six days a week and I was exhausted. Felt like I was hit by a truck constantly. October was when the bulk of the Christmas merchandise came in. Impossible to fit it all on the sales floor or in the stock rooms, tons and tons of merchandise, sometimes it was on the floor in the stock room, against fire codes, it was overwhelming. When I worked in Fragrance and Cosmetics we spent a month wraping merchandise and doing Xmas set up. Black Friday was a busy and long day. Pressure to make high sales goals, in frint of customers all day, moving merchandise, long hours. December 26th was the busiest day by far. Then stores decided to open on Jan 1st, which I think is awful. I rarely worked it. I always chose to work late on the 24th, Christmas Eve, to get out of Jan 1st.

Mid Jan is inventory, so we had to prepare for that.

Up north managers can take their comp days mid Jan through March, but I was in FL most of my career and we are in season! We never get a break after being overworked through Christmas season. Finally one of my managers ignored what the central office put out as guideline and we only worked 3 six day weeks instead of 5 prior to Christmas. It helped a little. Plus, she allowed us to take the comp days after March, because it made more sense for the business.

I worked like a dog while everyone else was taking time off and being merry. Well, me and all the other people who work jobs that ramp up during the holidays. Hotels, restaurants, plenty of people work hard through the holidays.

^^^^ Wow…..

My daughter is a body piercer, and she says that Thanksgiving through Christmas is dead at her work, since everyone is spending money on others, not themselves. The only business they do is selling gift cards, on which they get no commission.

Retail manager here. I’m in the thick of it right now. When I come home, my body aches like I’ve been running laps and lifting weights all day. I’m constantly chugging coffee and red bull.

@Dutchess_III Now you see why I am so pissed off about stores opening Thanksgiving eve at midnight. Retail is already abused. Abused physically, which becomes mental. The way a new mother can’t think straight from lack of sleep and exhaustian. Customers who never worked retail management may not understand, but the people who run the companies should. I seriously would be worried about staff driving home after that overnight Black Friday shift, who usually don’t work night shift, because the store is never open those hours. It’s like driving home on New Years, you know there are drunk people on the road. When Auggie’s daughter was forced to work it her dad drove her back and forth at my suggestion. She was just 17 being forced to work it. At 17 I would have fallen asleep at the wheel.

@Haleth I hear ya. When I had a largish house sometimes I would get a maid to clean my house every other week during this time of year. My day off I needed to recover physically and rest.

My job is fairly stable throughout the year. We’re busiest when the weather is bad, if we have a few weeks of snow, but as I work in the admin office rather than the front line, it doesn’t affect me so much.

Man, it should be banned, for legal and simply moral reasons @JLeslie. I have NEVER shopped on Black Friday. Never.

@Dutchess_III I rarely do. When I do, I certainly do not line up at 4am to do it! Where I used to live in FL Black Friday was not as hectic as what you see in northern stores. We had a huge Jewish population, so depending where Chanukah fell it influenced shopping a little, and many Jews don’t do much gift giving for Chanukah except for gifts for children. When I worked in the childrens department we had a lot of shopping three weeks before the holiday so all the grandmas living in FL could ship out the gifts to the kinder up north. Also, many Jewish people still celebrate Christmas with friends and family and even some do their own thing. Also, part of the population for the area is not down for the winter yet. Still, it was a busy day, and we still had to do all the preparation to be ready for Black Friday. We were grateful Black Friday was not completely a zoo, although the central organization didn’t necessarily understand why we didn’t have even bigger numbers that day. We were one of the highest volumes stores in the chain if you look at total year.

This year Chanukah is on Thanksgiving! Crazy early. I just bought a cute Chanukah cookie tin to fill with homemade cookies to have something in hand when I arrive at my inlaws for Thanksgiving. LOL. they never do shit to acknowledge that holiday for me except my FIL. He always calls for the Jewish holidays. He was raised Jewish though, I think maybe that’s why.

I stopped doing Black Friday when they changed it to Mediocre Deal Thursday.

I’m a proud celebrator of Buy Nothing Day. No deal is worth all that hassle.