Most people go to vacation at this time of the year. I imagine the use of the internet to surge steeply up with all the social media craze going on. Is this understanding correct?

If so, I wonder if web hosts have a Christmas vacation.

Personally, I've not had any vacation on major holidays in the past 10 years - nor does our staff. We stagger shifts a little more and instead of 8 hour shifts people are working 4 hour shifts, or they trade working new years for chistmas etc and get in their 8 or 12 hours instead.

Holidays are a busy time for hosts. For us, any time kids are out of school is considered a busy time for us, not so much for the sales end of things but the spamming and hacking (script kiddies) that are bored and have nothing to do over vaction breaks.

The 4 months leading up to Christmas are our busy time of the year for sales, and then the January month is normally slammed with people trying to get a new business/site online for the new year.

I never give holidays off to staff, and it's not expected as they see what happens at those busy times too.

Well, I have a three day weekend - does that count?

In most hosts case, billing department do take vacation. But, the tech support continues without vacation.

Well, in Canada it is mandatory that all employees are off for Canadian Statutory holidays and paid. However, outfits which require 24/7 operations such as Casinos, Airports etc the staff still need to work but are paid time and a half/double.

http://www.statutoryholidays.com/2010.php

As expertwebhost mentioned, typically employees of web hosts who work in the Sales and Billing departments get the holidays off and are paid their regular salary. Tech Support or Network Administrators would still need to work on these holidays but they are paid time and a half. Example, if their regular pay is $20.00/hr they would be paid $30.00/hr during statutory holidays.

Of course, it might be different in the states and smaller private companies may operate differently.

Best Regards,

This really varies from host to host. Most providers tend to be short-staffed over the holiday season as many staff members like to take off to spend time with their friends and families. If you are currently hosted with a provided and are curious about how your service will differ next week (if at all), I'd recommend that you contact your provider directly to ask.

What is this "vacation" you speak of?

I'm going down to the wife's family for the weekend although I'll likely have the laptop + 3G connect available just in case.

I'm sure most owners of companies who go on "vacation" will still stay connected to their business

I'm using one of those as we speak and it's working perfectly

Most hosting providers promise the customer 24*7 technical support,so even in the great major holiday they should work as usual . The vacation time means the busiest business period and best sales opportunity .

I do the same, take my laptop and dongle and we are sorted!

Owners can't stay away, I seem to have a an attraction to mine, worse than my Woman to me

Christmas can be a busy time, many discounts, sales and more, I already have taken 2 orders at 6AM

Here, we got no choice to have 24/7 tech but there half staff than on normal day and sales/billing closed. Like @LevelHosting stated those tech are paid double the usual amount for 25/1!

Lucky the ticket flow was less than a business day!


Holiday Schedule

* 24 December - Sales/Billing Closed
* 25 December - Sales/Billing Closed
* 31 December - Sales/Billing Closed
* 1st January - Sales/Billing Closed

The apps for the social network games and such are supposed to be supported by those platforms but they would be better off as standalone apps. I expect more facebook crashes any day now, cityville beta is not stable.

What does this have to do with this thread?