Microsoft Wrongly Gives Britain the Day Off

Barence writes "An error in Outlook's public holidays calendar has incorrectly given Britons the day off work. Today was originally meant to be a Bank Holiday in Britain, but the holiday was postponed for a week to coincide with the Queen's diamond jubilee next week. However, Microsoft Outlook and Windows Live services are still reporting today as Britain's Spring Bank Holiday, potentially tricking Britons into believing they have the day off work."

Comments

meh

[larry bagina]

"potentially"? How about you find some git that skipped work because of it.

Re:meh

[Inda]

The British are a lazy people, so it shouldn't be too difficult.

We're so lazy, our smoke alarms come with a snooze button.

Jokes aside, it's called Minimum Effort Efficiency.

Microsoft CAN do this.

[nurhussein]

After all, Microsoft does own England.

Finally, a real..

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows Genuine Advantage

Lessee here....

[CajunArson]

1. Google calendar has the same issue which is more embarrassing since Google calendar is online by definition and can be fixed more easily than outlook.

2. Apparently you can download an updated holidays file and patch Outlook.

3. Now that we've had our daily Microsoft-is-the-stupidest-and-evilest-company-on-the-planet-for-not-accurately-predicting-an-arbitrary-holiday-date-change-years-in-advance post, I'd like to see some more stories about how Americans are stupid and evil and some scientific studies showing that Christians are genetically inferior to the Atheist master race.

In their defense...

[MobyDisk]

but the holiday was postponed for a week to coincide with the Queen's diamond jubilee

In their defense, I must point out that the Queen of England writes terrible VBScript code. It probably is still being reviewed. If she wants to postpone a national holiday, she needs to get her changes committed at least 2 weeks prior to the hotfix release date.

Re:Seems a bit late to post this!

[Richard_at_work]

Normal work hours in the UK are 9am to 5.30pm, with an hour for lunch (this is typical of every job I have worked, non-retail). This was posted at about 5.15pm - just before the end of the normal working day for most people.

UK isn't England

[norfolkboy]

I don't pay any attention anyway.

Microsoft insists in referring to England as the UK when in fact they mean England.

Scotland has different holidays to England, but these aren't available to Scottish users according to MS.

Last year Windows UK had a UK tour, which only toured English cities. Nothing in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland.

A peeved UK citizen in Scotland.

Re:UK isn't England

[Nethead]

A peeved UK citizen in Scotland.

Isn't that statement redundant?

Re:UK isn't England

[gbjbaanb]

not so, not all Scottish UK citizens are peeved, most of them are just drunk.

Re:This is what happens with kings/queens

[Beardo the Bearded]

Microsoft has people working in the UK and the USA...

Not today.

Re:This is what happens with kings/queens

[mfraz74]

I think you'll find that the extra day off is next Tuesday and not this Friday. Oh and Ubuntu has been showing the correct bank holiday for at least a year.

Re:LOL Monarchy

[TheRaven64]

The depressing thing is that our anachronistic, out-of-touch, hereditary monarch is probably the sanest and best informed member of our government...

Re:This is what happens with kings/queens

[ozmanjusri]

Microsoft has people working in the UK and the USA...

Maybe, but the Microsoft people working in the UK are largely employed to market products and lie to governments and standards bodies.

http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/05/how-microsoft-fought-true-open-standards-v/index.htm
http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_cost_of_ODF_and_OOXML.html

Note that you have until June 4 2012 to counter some of this Microsoft propaganda.

Within the Government Digital Service we are already demonstrating how collaboration between departments, along with a clear focus on the user, delivers better public services for less. Open Standards are crucial for sharing information across government boundaries and to deliver a common platform and systems that more easily interconnect. Open standards are vital for progressing this work and I encourage you to share your views in this consultation.

Francis Maude MP- Minister for the Cabinet Office
http://consultation.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/openstandards/

Re:This is what happens with kings/queens

[jd]

Constitutionally, the monarch is strictly forbidden from talking about policy in public. The government is legally entitled to kick the monarch out of office for such an offense and has attempted to extend that to Prince Charles any number of times. The monarch also has no right to vote and no right to own personal property (they merely have the right to use the property held in trust for the monarchy), so they definitely have fewer rights.

Yes, Labour changed the holiday, which shows you just how much advance notice Microsoft had and thus the viscosity of the molasses they call management.