Do you think a well known corporation will let their employee work during new year's day?

Before I answer this, could I ask why you’re interested in this information?

to write a story! see my previous questions if you must.

or at least give me a reason why an employer/company would let their employee work during New year’s day?

Ok, fair enough. It would have to be a place that must be in operation 24 hours/day, 7 days/week, every day of the year. Any other kind of business would be closed on New Years Day. A few places like that would be: Hospitals, convenience stores, some types of retail stores, and some computer companies that support ‘mission critical’ government agencies like the Department of Defense. Of those, the only one that might be located in a high rise office building would be the computer support places. Hope that helps, since I wasn’t really able to name specific companies for you.

Of course it can happen. For example in IT on January 1, 2000. Or for large European banks on January 1, 2002 when the euro currency was introduced.

@augustlan @mattbrowne I don’t think my character in my story would fit as an IT/ or computer related worker. I was really going for a firm/company that’s private and usually out of people’s league, something an ordinary person would find intimidating to work for but would not pass the opportunity when they were asked to be part of it. It has to be a neck-n-tie work in a high rise building. @mattbrowne, I liked the added information 2000, and 2002 events you mentioned. I might use that date setting if I couldn’t solve this problem in my story. all in all thanks you guys!

My husband is expected to be available 24/7. He worked at the office over the “millennium” scare, just in case. His computer has his phone number and it calls him whenever there is an unauthorized access.

@YARNLADY – Sorry, but I don’t like the term millennium scare at all. The reason for the few serious incidents was IT working very hard in 1998 and 1999. It was a fallacy to say on January 2, 2000, hey, why all the fuzz, nothing really happened. Similarly people who talk about avian flu scares or swine flu scare are irresponsible. The reason avian flu is still contained has to do with effective measures like having to keep chicken indoors at certain times or asking people to report dead wild birds they find etc.

When I worked at the grocery (well known, mind you), we were indeed open and had to work on NYD. Why? Because people would come to shop if we were. My favorite were the people who would come to buy stuff and ask why we were open. “Because you’re standing there!” :)

Might not be an office per se, but office critters aren’t the only ones who work.

I work for a Fortune 100 company. Every single major company would “let” salaried people work 365 days a year, 24/7. Without additional compensation. I routinely put in 60 hour weeks for the same pay that I get for 40 hours because I have that much work to deliver on. I am not management. I have access to the building at all times.

@mattbrowne I had to work New Years 2000, in case there was a problem with the millinneum. The only thing we found was the yard gas pump didn’t work.
@life welcome to fluther. Lurve.

Almost all of retail is open New Years day now. Bloomingdale’s, Macy’s, and all of the other stores you find in a Mall. Hotels, Restaurants.

Disney is open New years day, as are all hotel chains.

I second @PandoraBoxx‘s quip.

I can come into my office and work any time day or night, weekends, holidays, whenever. But as a salaried employee, I won’t actually get paid anything additional for it.

Furthermore, a lot of building management will turn off HVAC systems outside of normal business hours. And I can tell you first-hand, it gets HOT on the 13th floor of a building in north Texas in August.

And finally, a lot of IT work for systems maintenance also goes on outside of normal business hours. Major work happens almost every weekend. So, while you can go into the office, it’s not necessarily guaranteed that email, network, file servers, web sites, etc. will actually be available for you to use.

It isn’t as though they barricade the building and put security out front to keep people from working on holidays.
If someone wants to work on Christmas, that employee can get in if they have a key to the office.

A venture capitalist getting ready for an IPO in the next week or two. This list might give you ideas for specific geographic areas (where the office is located, not where deals are made).

A financier getting ready for a huge deal. Goldman-Sachs

Support staff for a big deal politician who is making an important speech or cutting an important deal around the time of the new year.

Investigator looking at white collar crime.

CIA operative investigating international corporate shenanigans.

Some people who answer emergency calls are plumbers, vets, 911, firehouse, utility cos. if a tree falls on a line.

Plenty of companies issue electronic badges to employees so they can come and go at all hours. I could get in on New Year’s Day if I wanted. And if I did, I am certain I would not be the only one. I have stopped in at 11:30 on a Saturday night to pick something up and not been alone in the building. On any given weekend day at just about any time there will be cars in the parking lot, and undoubtedly on holidays too.

Nobody asks me to report my hours or notify anyone when I’m in the office. My badge scane would show I’m onsite, unless I entered with someone else. No one would know when I left. Instead it’s all about whether I “make my deliverables,” and believe me, my list of assignments is long and steady enough so that they know I am not goofing off.

By the same token, I can put in a week’s work without leaving my house because everyone is issued a laptop and connected via VPN to the corporate network. People have to have special permission to be full-time remote workers, and those of us with on-campus locations have requirements to be present so many days a week, but it is very fluid.

I work for a high-tech Fortune 100 company with a global reach and IT services that operate nonstop.

@Jeruba sounds like a great company.

The company I work for operates around the clock—we have major offices in North America, but satellite offices in several cities in Europe and Asia.

There is absolutely nothing preventing me from working any hours. I’d have to have a really good personal reason to actually be in the office on New Year’s Eve, but neither the building maintenance people nor my employers would have a problem with me working.

@life: what kind of work do you want your character to do?

@JLeslie, it consistently makes the list of the 100 best companies to work for and is usually in the top 10. But that, my dear, is only half the story. I can’t wait to sign off for the last time and turn in my badge.

@Jeruba I see.

@Jeruba @robmandu Your work sounds very much like what my husband does. He also is salaried, and does not receive any extra pay for being on call 24/7. However, they made it worth our while to move 500 miles away from family, and his salary has increased at least 4% every year he has been there (25 years), and there is often a substantial bonus for special projects completed.

He loves his work, and has developed several proposals on his own time, which the company profited from. In one case, his project was one of the reasons the new owners bought the company last year.

Security employees work on New Year’s Day, for obvious reasons. NYD 2010 is on a Friday, I expect to be working. Woo hoo! Holiday pay!

I know one.The company call Boxes and packages.The boss will give you 20 pound on hand.If you work in new years day.

At everyone, so its settle then, people do work at the office during new years day. It seems to me its usually IT work
or security? How about HR, are they also present during that day???

@PandoraBoxx @robmandu @Jeruba what work do you do, so i’ll have more insight? (but its ok if you don’t want to say it)
@daloon thanks for giving me a lot of choices. @cwilbur it depends on the information that I could acquire.

@life If you need HR, HR might be at work in a Department Store, because the HR Manager is usually one of the main key holders along with the Op’s Director and Store Manager, so they might be there for coverage.

And, like many said any position, if they have access to the building at any time might work that day.

@life, I’m currently in technical documentation, but most of the people in the organization are software engineers or in related functions such as product marketing and product testing. Major software development projects, with enormous quantities of code to be written and tested and integrated by a committed release date, create a high-pressure environment in which people do perform extraordinary feats to make deadlines. That’s part of what they mean by a “fast-paced working environment.” When sales (and performance bonuses) depend on it, you do whatever it takes.

The documentation is on the same schedule as the software, so my group has the same pressures, except that we can’t finish the books until the engineers have finished creating the software, or it’s apt to change after we’ve written about it, making customers unhappy. And you can’t research, write, illustrate, edit, and publish a book by tomorrow that documents software products that were still being developed at midnight last night. Some people look at the holidays as an opportunity to catch up or get ahead while everybody else has stopped working—except that everybody else hasn’t.

I lived that way for long enough and do not do it any more. By this stage of my career I know how to get things done faster and cleaner without as much thrashing as some of the younger professionals.

@Jeruba: Compared to your present daily girind, throwing a party sounds simple.

Yeahbut ... yeahbut ... I know everything about how to do my job, and ultimately I can master any words on any piece of paper, virtual or actual, or know what to do with them if I can’t. I can’t say the same for floors & windows, cobwebs & dust kittens, guest lists, food, music playlists, weather, guests ...

@Jeruba: Repeat after me, ” I do not have to dust the tops of the canned peas from 1998 at the back of the cupboard in order to have a great party. I do not have to refinish the floors. I can have two martinis before guests arrive”

thx gail. i wury abt doin it RONG

But this sure is off topic for the thread. Sorry, @life.

The Home Depot, Im pretty sure they are only closed for Christmas and Thanksgiving.