On Friday afternoon in the 18th floor kitchen of my office space Toronto, there was a few people talking about American holidays. One person asked “Why has Memorial Day, like so many of America’s national holidays, been reduced to mattress sales, appliance sales, fast food specials, and vacation deals?” All one needs to do this weekend or any other US holiday weekend, is to watch a US television station and within no time at all, they will see a (insert holiday name here) Mattress Sale.
There are a number of office space Toronto clients who represent American branch offices in Toronto. Today being Memorial Day also meant that many of those American office clients have the day off. The one advantage that employees of foreign companies with Toronto office space enjoy, is that they get their countries’ holidays off along with Canadian holidays.
There are also Toronto branch office companies that employ Canadians who do not take US holidays off and will often fill the void left by their US counterparts and take calls intended for head office. This is especially true if the company has international customers who do not observe US holidays. The reverse is true when Canadian holidays occur; calls to the Canadian office are often re-routed to the US office, so that customers are able to reach someone, regardless of whose holiday it is.
This got me to wondering how many of Telsec’s Toronto virtual office clients who are located in the USA give custom call-handling instructions to the receptionist in their Toronto office location. I also wondered if they wanted their calls to be forwarded as usual or sent directly to voice mail.
While taking a break from writing this blog, I told a friend who has an office down the hall from my office space Toronto what I was writing about. He could only joke about what the sales would be if they ever made a holiday in the name of former Presidents Bill Clinton or George Bush!
Let the jokes begin!