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Star Wars Prequels Media Movies It's funny. Laugh.

Star Wars Sickout 715

Posted by samzenpus from the what-would-yoda-do dept.
Brahmastra writes "The New York Post reports that it will cost employers $628,880,000 in lost productivity on the first two days of Star Wars Episode III - Return of the Sith . How many of you are planning to skip at least part of your workday on the first two days?"
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Star Wars Sickout More

Star Wars Sickout

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  • Fine... (Score:5, Funny)

    by MoxCamel ( 20484 ) * on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @09:39PM (#12505401)
    ...so I guess I'll pick up your slack AGAIN!

    • Re:Fine... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Seumas ( 6865 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @09:58PM (#12505575)
      Most single people are used to picking up the slack of parents in the office, anyway. This time, it just gives the other people a chance to cut out for a day and make the family people who are always taking days off or leaving early (without counting it as a vacation or sick day) to cover them.

      Except people like me, of course, who wouldn't see star wars if my company paid me to take the day off and watch it.

      • Re:Fine... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by the_Bionic_lemming ( 446569 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @10:16PM (#12505686)
        Dude - I wish I had mod points right now.

        Picking up slack for the office broad that has a "cough cough" sick kid racks up hours. Over the course of a year - in addition to her two weeks of vacation time, and the 5 sick days and a personal day, she racked up close to 130 hours of "Oh I gotta leave" time.

        That's not counting her smoker time outside - which she managed to do at least ten minutes out of each hour.

      • Re:Fine... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by cdrudge ( 68377 ) * on Thursday May 12, 2005 @09:26AM (#12508392) Homepage
        Maybe your experience is that way, but my (albeit limited) experience is the opposite. Many of my married w/ children coworkers routinely come in early, stay late, etc. Other single or just married w/o children are in the door at 7:30 and out the door at 4:00. Hourly/salary has some to do with this, but its also the type of people they are, but I usually see more salary people picking up the extra work then non-salary. Classifying all married w/ children workers as slackers is just incorrectly stereotyping us.

        It also helps to have a company that actually enforces sick/personal time. I get a lump of hours to use for being sick, doctors appointments for both me AND my family. If I need to stay home with a sick kid, I lose the hours. If I need to pick him up from school early, I lose the hours. If your company doesn't enforce it, then blame your company as well.

    • Re:Fine... (Score:5, Funny)

      by turtled ( 845180 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @10:06PM (#12505634)
      ...reports that it will cost employers $628,880,000 in lost productivity on the first two days...

      Or, as I read it, "George Lucas will be $628,880,000 richer in the first two days..."

    • At least it's better than the first two! (Score:5, Funny)

      by antic ( 29198 ) on Thursday May 12, 2005 @03:12AM (#12507070)

      At least this is going to be better than the first two. They were so bad that I had to take the *next* day off sick just to recover.

  • Jobs? What jobs? (Score:5, Funny)

    by luna69 ( 529007 ) * on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @09:39PM (#12505404)
    What self-respecting SW fan still has a JOB? They're all in line already. The loss will be negligible. There might even be a net increase in productivity.

    • Re:Jobs? What jobs? (Score:5, Funny)

      by TheWanderingHermit ( 513872 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @10:28PM (#12505755)
      Actually, I'm glad I have the job I do. The boss has already done the same thing he did 3 years ago: He declared the day St. Lucas day, closed down the business, and paid for everyone in the company to come along and see the movie.

      We have strange holidays. In the past few years, we've had 3 St. Tolkein days, 3 St. Rowling days, a St. Roddenberry day, a few St. Warchowski Days, and even one or two St. Lee days (which he also called St. Stan-the-man days). Oh, and last Friday was St. Adams day, but there was some confusion about exactly when that day was, since everyone had towels wrapped around their heads so the ravenous bugblatter beast of Traal couldn't see us.

      Ahhhh.

      It's good to be the boss.
  • It's going to be a fun day at the office Thursday :-)
  • I'm going to convince my kids to play hookey and they can come along too!
  • ...what's that?

  • Fuck that (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    People have to learn to live off of 3 hours of sleep. The movie start at midnight on Wednesday. It will be over at 2:30am. I'll be home be 3am. Asleep by 4am and wake up at 7am. Typical night for a programmer.

  • Cross-promotion (Score:5, Insightful)

    by FunWithHeadlines ( 644929 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @09:42PM (#12505424) Homepage
    Wait, let me get this straight: The New York Post is hyping how popular they think the Fox Movie studio distributing the movie Revenge of the Sith will be. OK, let's see...New York Post (owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp). Check. Fox (owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp). Check. Cross-promotion? Check. Getting Slashdot to hype this to the fanboys? Check.

    Somehow, I'm not a bit surprised. :)

    • This appears to be actually official policy in News Corp - many of its organs are used to cross-promote the others. This is most noticeable when it's grating, such as Sky News showing up in 20C Fox movies, but they can also be fairly subtle - such as this example.

      The British satirical magazine Private Eye [private-eye.co.uk] has a fairly regular section devoted exposing News Corp. cross-media plugs.

  • I'm going, but so is my staff (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pwnage ( 856708 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @09:42PM (#12505428)
    Not only am I going to Star Wars next week, I'm planning on taking my staff as well. So I guess I'll be the one responsible for the loss of productivity in my own area. Oh well, c'est la vie.

  • This is Ridic. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by kryogen1x ( 838672 )
    Kids at my school drove through red lights at twelve midnight to get tickets (they bought a whole row), and now they're scalping them at my school. They're so afraid that the tickets will be stolen, that they carry knives with them. The movie's sold out at the local theatre now, and I blame them.

  • In other news... (Score:5, Funny)

    by shakezula ( 842399 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @09:42PM (#12505430)
    Star Wars Episode III will also consume 38.75% of the total available Internet bandwidth once a 1337 CAM is torrented.
  • Going at noon on the release date!

    Remember though... safety in numbers .. get a large group together and you'll likely stave off any tight-assed managers from complaining.

  • Funny math (Score:2, Insightful)

    by groke ( 160115 )
    Using the numbers on the article, each of the 4.8 million employed people who will see the movie will play hooky for the full day.

    So, if I want to go to a 7pm showing, I'll be costing my company my time for the whole day?

    Something smells a little fishy..

  • Did anyone else notice... (Score:5, Funny)

    by DanthemaninVA1 ( 750886 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @09:43PM (#12505434)
    ...that they got the title of the movie wrong?

  • I don't buy it (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pyite ( 140350 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @09:43PM (#12505441)
    It's a flawed analysis. They study implies that these people otherwise wouldn't have these days off. People who get vacation time tend to either take it when they can so as not to lose it, or they accrue it to cash in later. It's as much a part of compensation as actual pay. On the other hand, hourly employees who don't get vacation time are only costing themselves money, so there's no business loss. *Sigh*, more people who think they can model the world with incredibly flawed assumptions.

    • Re:I don't buy it (Score:5, Funny)

      by bcrowell ( 177657 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @09:59PM (#12505584) Homepage
      Projected economic losses from people cutting work to go to Star Wars III:
      • $628,880,000
      Projected economic losses from rioting if it has Jar Jar in it:
      • $843,111,644.77
      Projected economic losses from decreased self-esteem when people realize they got lured into paying to see this one, too:
      • $948,362,210.03

    • Re:I don't buy it (Score:5, Insightful)

      by biobogonics ( 513416 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @11:34PM (#12506164)
      It's a flawed analysis. They study implies that these people otherwise wouldn't have these days off.

      Actually it's a stupid story. Why don't they write a story about lost productivity around November 15th - the start of hunting season?

      • double standard (Score:5, Funny)

        by gad_zuki! ( 70830 ) on Thursday May 12, 2005 @01:30AM (#12506698)
        Or religious holidays. Or the first "beach day" of summer. Or when Lynard Skynard/Rolling Stones comes to town and all the baby boomers try to squeeze into blue jeans they bought 25 years ago. Or hang-over day after cinco de mayo. Or April 20th.

        Oh wait, the double standard.

        Picking on geeks is easy. Picking on religion, the boomers who run business, and minorities isn't. Its like the New York Post is high school all over again.
  • I'm just waiting for Lucas to stop murdering the memory of Star Wars.

    That, and Serenity.
  • With the bad reviews from fans of the previous two movies they need to hype it up to make sure they're coming.

    I just hope that the improvements in the second part of Episode 2 continue in this sequel.
  • The fact is, you don't just magically get time off when a new movie comes out. Someone has to cover for you where you work, or your work doesn't get done. If your work doesn't get done, you get fired. How does this add up to billions in lost funds?
  • CONSUME [contentvulture.com]


    reference to They Live

  • If somebody takes PTO for the day they are out, the time and $$$ has already been accounted for.

    If the person makes up for it by working harder or coming in over the weekend, then the lost time is recovered. Lost opportunity is another matter and harder to measure.

    It isn't as simple as adding up all the hours and multiplying by the hourly wage, but then again, I don't think the target demographic of the NY Post is people with MBAs.
  • I needed it off to go to my Uncle Obi-Wan's funeral. He didn't catch it at first.
  • I plan on being there at the 7 A.M. showing at the theater down the road.

    But, seriously, it's pretty common for people to skip out or come in late to work when there is something they really want to do. A couple of my co-workers recently took a 3-hour lunch to go and play golf. They made up their work hours and got their assigned work done. I've found that most employers don't care if you take a few hours off every once in a while as long as you get your work completed.
  • I'm not the ideal when it comes to responsibility, but c'mon. What the hell's the point in skipping work for a movie. It's not like some once in a lifetime concert that's only playing one night. This movie will be available on some form of media till long after you die!
  • Who will stick to their plans? I planned to go see HHGG the first day.. and I haven't even seen it yet. I probably won't for a week or three.

    Judging by people I know and myself out of every 10 who plan to go first day only 2-3 will make it.
  • all the gamers who don't go will get 20ms pings :D

  • sick? (Score:5, Funny)

    by reiggin ( 646111 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @09:46PM (#12505468)
    That's a pathetic excuse. I'm just quitting.
  • I think I'm finally starting to appreciate the prequels. I think ROTS will reveal the things that seemed dumb in TPM and AOTC to have been part of a large web of deceit.

    I thought it was stupid to have Anakin and Kenobi guard the princess in AOTC, but in light of ROTS it's clear that Padme is about as unsettling on Anakin as Palpatine is. When Anakin kills the village of sandpeople she doesn't take him to task, and actually goads him into disobeying the Jedi counsel in going to Geonosis.
    Finally, it's the fa
  • I sense a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of employers suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.
  • If they had girlfriends, they'd be pissed at them.

  • Hmmm sounds awfull... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ShatteredDream ( 636520 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @09:50PM (#12505503) Homepage
    Yeah, right. This is the final installment in the series so it's not like this is going to be one of many "productivity hits" that businesses will have to suffer. You want to bitch about a productivity hit, why not bitch about the dumbasses who cannot follow IT department policy about opening insecure attachments and who do other things like that which open them up to worms? God only knows how much money businesses have lost to such willfully negligent behavior.
  • The company I work for announced a couple of days ago a "Company Workshop" on 5/29, at the local megaplex. And... it is for the whole family. My company employs about 20, and *everyone* is going.

    Fringe benefit to working at an uber-geek company.

    -Charles
  • Since I and some of my friends have tickets to a gold class 12:01 screening, I did the sensible thing and applied for annual leave for the 19th and 20th.

    Got it approved too, despite having the reason field saying "Recovering from Star Wars midnight session" :)

    And if you're wondering "why gold class?", it's simply because we don't trust the movie to be any good. With gold class we'll at least have very comfy seats, snacks brought in to us, and no screaming kids in the cinema (we booked out the entire gold
  • How many of you are planning to skip at least part of your workday on the first two days?

    Well I already have my physical tickets hanging from my 'fridge [fandango.com]. I also flat-out told my managers (yes plural... :-\ ) that I will be unavailable that day (May 19th). My Son, my GF, my Mom and, myself have tickets (again, literally hanging on my fridge).

  • Skip work?! Nah... work's PAYING for the entire engineering team to go watch the movie :)

  • My Faith in Speculation is Still Waining... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Jinsaku ( 729938 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @09:52PM (#12505526)
    From the article:

    The findings are based on the assumption that attendance during the first two days will match that of the last "Star Wars" blockbuster, "Episode II -- Attack of the Clones," which attracted 9.4 million people in in 2002.

    Challenger estimates that 4.8 million of those opening-day attendees are employed at least 35 hours per week. With those full-timers earning an average of $130.60 per day, the two-day cost in terms of lost wages and productivity would be a staggering $626,880,000, he said.

    So, even estimating that their 4.8 million figure is right, they assume that all of these 4.8 million people will skip the entire day to watch a 2 hour movie? Not only do those attendance figures for episode 2 include midnight showings the previous night (I went the the 12:01 and was into work bright and early the next morning), but they don't even realize that probably *half* the showtimes are *after* work hours. I know a lot of people that are catching the Thursday or Friday evening of the show. Granted, there is a hit to production, but it's nowhere *near* the figure they speculate in the article.

  • I work in the movie business, and a whole bunch of us are planning on a "field research" trip, with the company's knowledge. And I get to deduct the cost of my ticket as a business-related expense.
  • Do. Or do not. There is no plan.
  • Something tells me more money is lost every day on employees using their time to post on forums and talk about nothing on IRC than what will be lost the first two days of a movie series that is highly overrated, hyped and most importantly, lost it's glory and all my interest after the first (or last, depending on view) three movies.
  • I honestly don't know!
  • Natalie Portman, naked and petrified.
  • My group at Amazon (while we're not busy coming up with things to patent) is taking a group trip to see it on Friday. I wasn't going to pay to go see it on my own, but now, the price is right.

    Apparently someone here thinks that going to see it, overall, isn't a loss. Furthermore, they think paying for us to go see it isn't a loss.

    Any programmers need a job? I need co-workers.
  • Who would pay $100 to see a movie when they can see it later in the day for $6.75? I suppose it's not as bad as quitting your job to camp out in front of the theater two months in advance.
  • The last two films sucked so much donkey dong they'll be lucky if I bother to add the new one to my netflix queue.

    Mark me as a troll if you must, but after the last two anyone who still bothers to camp in line or blow off work to see a new one has a learning curve like Kansas.
  • ... is giving full-time employees tickets to see it at a local AMC theater [amctheatres.com] (DLP screen!) on purpose because managers know a lot of employees will see it (take time off). Of course, we return to work after the movie. It is called "team building". :)

    Co-workers and I can't complain!
  • I won't bother seeing it in the theater. if I see it at all, it'll be on hbo, or something. He fucked his chance at my money by sucking ass on EP1 and EP2.

    Yes, George doesn't owe me anything, but I don't owe him anything either.

  • The New York Post is hardly journalism. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by crovira ( 10242 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @10:10PM (#12505653) Homepage
    I'd take anything Rupert Murdoch says with enough salt to ruin my taste buds.

  • The Darker side (Score:4, Funny)

    by CrazyJim1 ( 809850 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @10:11PM (#12505656) Journal
    I sense a disturbance in the labor force. Its as if a million people all called in sick.

  • No (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ucblockhead ( 63650 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @10:20PM (#12505715) Homepage Journal
    I'll skip work for a movie I know is good. As for this thing...I've been burned twice. I'll let all you guys go the first day. That way, I can find out on slashdot if it is any good, or is yet another Lucasonian fiasco. I can wait until the second weekend. If it's what I think it is, I can wait for the DVD.

    Serenity...I'm skipping work for that.

  • Official Excuse Note (Score:5, Funny)

    by Silwenae ( 514138 ) * on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @10:22PM (#12505725) Homepage
    Download your official Star Wars Excuse Note [geeksquad.com] to give to your employer / school / etc.

  • "loss" of productivity? (Score:5, Funny)

    by EvilStein ( 414640 ) <.ten.pbp. .ta. .maps.> on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @10:29PM (#12505766)
    Pffft. They're assuming that any of us were productive to begin with. Judging by the sheer volume of posts on Slashdot these days, productivity is a pipe dream.

    I think that firewalling Slashdot would wipe out any financial losses caused by geeks taking time off to see Episode III.

    Then again, we're taking a work sponsored outing to see the movie. heh.

  • If You Can't Fight Them, Join Them (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Comatose51 ( 687974 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @10:30PM (#12505768) Homepage
    My employers decided that it would be smarter to rent out a theater on premiere day for a showing at 4 PM rather than have people skip out. No lines or sleeping in tents for me. It also helps that my company is a hedge fund founded by a bunch of engineering nerds. They want to go as much as we do. It's a win-win situation. Boost morale, prevent "sick" leaves, and satisfy your inner nerd. The company is run by smart people I tell you :-).

  • Cost to business? WTF?! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Malc ( 1751 ) on Thursday May 12, 2005 @12:20AM (#12506396)
    Why does it always come back to the costs to business? When did they become more important to people? How about the costs to individuals caused by businesses (e.g. days cut from life-span due to job-related stress)? There's more to life than big business.
    • This is very true. However, I think that the whole idea of costs to business is bullshit for another reason - we are entitled to take days off. Granted, we are talking about people using sick days to go see the movies - but we are entitled to sick days as well.

      A better system for days off is - in my company anyway, Paid Time Off. Basically, let's say you are entitled to 2 weeks vacation and 5 sick days per year, that's a total of 15 days. So they just give us 15 days off, paid, for any reason or purpos

  • Certainly makes sense (Score:3, Funny)

    by sjonke ( 457707 ) on Thursday May 12, 2005 @08:08AM (#12507908) Journal
    After you've finished watching the latest Star Wars abomination and realize that not only did you pay for it, but you could have spent the time sleeping or maybe recreating that crazy nail scene in Blade Runner on your own hand just for fun, you're bound to feel sick, so it makes perfect sense to take sick leave.

  • Mega spoiler: Anakin is DARTH VADER!! (Score:3, Funny)

    by zardie ( 111478 ) on Thursday May 12, 2005 @08:36AM (#12508045) Homepage
    As per subject.

    Now you don't need to take a day off! It's good for us casual workers who don't get sick leave.

  • Wait... (Score:3, Funny)

    by CrazyTalk ( 662055 ) on Thursday May 12, 2005 @09:07AM (#12508261)
    Is the sickout for the day that Star Wars premiers, or for the day AFTER everyone has already seen it?

  • Christmas. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Gannoc ( 210256 ) on Thursday May 12, 2005 @09:37AM (#12508468)
    I wonder how much "productivity" we lose due to Christmas.

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