At home or on deadline?

Who is minding the store? While the nation’s retailers are trying to lure as many potential customers into their shops in the last few days before Christmas, many firms seem to have an emptying out process as employees use up their last vacation days.

The Krause Publications office in Iola is not immune to the trend. We don’t have a retail outlet here.

I work on a weekly paper. Somebody has got to be here to get it out the door no matter what holiday the calendar says it is. However, our book department is not under such strict time pressure and the parking lot was certainly a lot emptier than usual this morning.

When Numismatic News goes to press two days early tomorrow, I will then switch over into holiday mode and just make sure everything is ready for my return next Monday.

Two-day work weeks are nice, but they depend on the prior five-day week to make it happen smoothly.

Usually during the lead up to Christmas I get some interesting telephone calls as individuals who normally would be working are home during regular business hours and decide to take advantage of it by telephoning me. We will see how it goes this year.

Perhaps a few of the calls will be from new subscribers deciding that no matter how their finances are faring, that reading and learning about their favorite hobby is a great thing to do because it doesn’t put a dent in their checkbook.