“Cyber Monday”
It has a name. That is so awesome.
Of course we all know that employees surf the net when they are supposed to be working. They blog, they game, they IM, and they shop.
In fact, they - or should I say, we - shop so much and with such brazen disregard for our employers’ overtaxed high speed connections that we have actually earned a cool moniker not to mention a measurable impact on the holiday shopping season.
For those of you who don’t know, Cyber Monday is the first day back day after Thanksgiving for most Americans, a day on which workers hijack company-provided net connections to shop for the goodies family members told us they could not live without over the Thanksgiving Turkey. But Cyber Monday people are the folks who decided to sleep in on Black Friday rather than trample someone’s Aunt Rose over a DVD player. Instead Cyber Monday people shove their spreadsheets to the other side of the desk and spend a good part of the day hopping from Amazon to Lands End to Old Navy.
Cyber Monday is obviously a new phenomenon but it’s growing. Retailers are starting to bank on this day nearly as much as they bank on Black Friday. Well, if there’s anything I would bet on, it’s bored office workers looking for a way to blow worktime. Seems like a a no-brainer to me.
Me, I’m a cyber person, although I did not do my shopping at work today (my employer actually tracks net usage). I’ll tackle my shopping over the next few days, most of it online, though some things will require a trip to the…mall…yuck. I hate brick and mortar shopping around the holidays. Hate the crowds, hate parking, hate food courts, everything. That’s just the way I am made, and, apparently, many people agree with me. All I can say is here’s to many more years of sleeping late on Black Friday and free shipping deals on Cyber Monday.
Of course the question remains, did anyone get any work done today?
I remember doing my Christmas shopping on a 56k modem! You couldn’t do it in secret because the handshake noise tipped everyone around you were going online, and it took forever to order one book from Amazon - and they didn’t even have any kitchen equipment! And we liked it!
I remember placing an order on Amazon by 56k modem.
And then sending them a check to pay for it. And it was still the coolest thing ever!
Beat that!
I’m stunned. Stunned that walking uphill in the snow to the post office is not part of either of your tales.
We didn’t have wireless yet.
How do you think we picked up the packages?