Yesterday was supposedly Cyber Monday -- the day everyone returns to work after the long holiday weekend and immediately begins Christmas shopping at their desks.
It’s the kind of story reporters love -- an easy-to-digest economic trend, with just a hint of naughtiness: Are you online-shopping at work, wink wink? Well don’t worry, everyone does it! Ha ha!
In fact, a quick Google News search found 4,095 articles hyping “Cyber Monday” in the last week.
The only problem is, everybody isn’t shopping online on that day. Some of us actually have to work. According to a survey conducted by the staffing service Accountemps, 79% of professionals polled said they will not shop online from work this holiday season.
So where did the notion of Cyber Monday come from? According to the awesome myth-debunkers at Snopes.com, it was created as a marketing gimmick by Shop.org, a trade association for online retailers.
Snopes reports that Cyber Monday actually ranks as about the 12th-busiest day for online shopping. The real busiest day usually falls on a Monday or Tuesday the week before the week in which Christmas falls; last year, it was December 13, and in 2005 it was December 12.
So don’t feel bad if you spent yesterday working.