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After we printed Yahoo's corporate e-mail telling employees to use their vacation time for the Christmas holiday week (or to take unpaid time off), the news got around — Forbes, MSNBC, the Red Herring, and other media outlets drew more attention to the faux pas. Now Scrooge had a change of heart: Yahoo's making their forced-vacation plan a bit more flexible.

The whole internal e-mail is below, and the gist is that Yahoos can come to work during the post-Christmas week if they want. They still need to take four vacation days by the end of the year if they have 'em, but no one will be forced to take unpaid time off. Yay!

So, who's gonna work that week?

From: Libby Sartain
Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2006 6:53 PM
To: [redacted]@yahoo-inc.com
Subject: December Office Closure—-Revisited

Yahoos,

Many of you have expressed concern regarding the
planned closure of our US offices during the week of
December 25 - 31, 2006. Thank you to those who took
the time to contact me, another member of the HR team,
or your manager. Many of your comments were very
thoughtful and heartfelt. I want you to know that
your feedback is important, appreciated, and has been
heard.

Yahoo! is committed to reducing our unused vacation
time. However, we're going to be more flexible and
give Yahoos the option of selecting vacation dates
outside of the recommend week, provided you take the
four days by the end of the calendar year.

Yahoos are still encouraged to take the time off
between December 25 and December 31 as that is
traditionally a quiet work week, but selecting any
four days between October 1, 2006 and the end of the
year is an acceptable alternative.

Additionally, Yahoos who have not accrued four days of
vacation or who have already utilized all of their
vacation time this year will not be required to take
time off before 2007.

Please be reminded that Yahoo!'s online vacation
tracking tool, My Time
(http://backyard.yahoo.com/resources/fin/payroll/mytime/index.html),
will automatically default to unused personal floaters
and/or vacation for December 26-29. Yahoos intending
to work during those days will need to actively change
the default setting. Please contact your manager or
human resources business partner if you have any
questions.

- Libby

Earlier: Yahoo pulls a Scrooge with forced unpaid holiday vacation [Valleywag]