1. Depression. While depression is prevalent throughout year, seasonal depression will exacerbate with holidays and with less daylight hours.

2. Drinking on job.

3. Increased absenteeism. Time off for shopping, to recover from weekend, from general exhaustion, etc.

4. Upper management with their ample accrued time-off will all be out of office. Owners, CEOs and others who have 4 weeks or more to take off during a year may save it for this time of year intentionally or will have to work it in to use it so they don't lose it.

5. Shopping online.

Here are some very recent dealings my associate and I have had to deal with, and how we handled it:

1. I got heavily chewed out because I didn't receive a fax reply from someone to whom I faxed paperwork to TWICE. She didn't check to see if her lawyer received my fax - only asked me if I had received reply. I told her I hadn't, and it became "my fault" that her lawyer didn't reply to me. I faxed papers out again, and she again chewed me out for her lawyer not replying. I was not given lawyer's phone number to follow up with, so I could never follow through to see if fax got through. It is client's responsibility to "push" her lawyer to act, however, and not mine. So she said she will take her business to another company.

I let her know I did fax out papers more than once, and I had no phone number to follow up with - if she would provide me with phone number I would call, but ultimately it is her responsibility to get her lawyer to act. I told her I would work with her if she chose, but if she felt she needed to go elsewhere, so be it. I would be here if she ever needed my services. I suppose client may be difficult to deal with, so perhaps I am better off. But I didn't try to burn any bridges in matter. If she finds same situation with next company, maybe she'll forgive me (or just get angry at one more person). Whether she refers me to anyone else is not a goal at this point - goal is to appease her enough that she won't try to tell people to stay away from my business - to try to cool her anger.

2. I emailed a reply stating that I was sorry I took awhile (6 hours) to reply to an email. I told person I had an emergency with my daughter and had to go to hospital. I figured this person would perhaps understand that it was serious. Guess what reply I got? The email said "WHAT?? I'll just find another source."

OK, now I was taken aback by that. I thought a family emergency was a legitimate reason to excuse a less than prompt reply. I guess I will have to just say I was "out of office." Or say nothing and just reply. Is 6 hours really that late a response? I think not, to tell truth. But, I did email back and tell this person that I can work with im if he would like, and will give him my full attention in case. Again, I am just hoping I won't get him telling others not to use my service. (He obviously doesn't have kids or feel same way.)