Having an empty office where you can get work done in peace is one of those simple pleasures that are uncommonly rare.

My last job was dead every December. We provided search engines for realtors and almost no one buys a house in December, so realtors don’t care about their websites and traffic to our servers was always minimal. Most people in the office would take time off, but for me it was catch up time. I could get more of the work I was interested in done during the week between Christmas and New Years than I could in a full quarter the rest of the year.

Then I took my time off in the spring when all the realtors were just starting to freak out about the summer sales season.