Well, here’s the story. Let’s start this off by saying that we think this might be a little bit too early, but you never know with Apple. Anyways, we told y’all last year before the first iPhone launched that AT&T employees were not allowed to take vacations from June 15th to July 15th. AT&T reps just got an internal email stating that they would be unable to take vacation time from 4/15-5/15 “due to projected increased traffic and an exciting new promotion/product launch.” We’re only 10 days away from the end of that time frame and with no Apple event in the next week or so, it seems highly unlikely that a new iPhone will launch. Then again, the only other time AT&T has done this was last year before the first iPhone launched. What do y’all think? Think some Apple event invites will start getting sent out in the next couple days? Or is this way too soon?

UPDATE: Sorry, guys. We’re lacking some serious sleep over here. The dates are in fact June 15th to July 12th. Our apologies. The full internal email, after the jump!

AT&T Mobility

Vacation Schedules

To: All Employees

Last year at this time we asked that all vacations be scheduled before June 15 or after July 15, to ensure adequate store staffing and to give everyone an equal opportunity to benefit from an exciting product launch. Thanks to your hard work, we experienced excellent sales during the mid-summer period. This year, the numbers you produced in 2007 will be hard to beat; but as a business, we must rise to the challenge, and make every effort to exceed last year’s sales results. Your management team is counting on you!

We’ll meet the challenge “head-on” by providing an exciting Summer Promotional Launch to enable your sales to soar. We again anticipate heavier than normal customer traffic in our stores, providing an excellent earning opportunity for every front line retail sales consultant (RSC) in company owned retail stores.

To ensure proper staffing during this period, Sales personnel planning to take approved time off are encouraged to schedule their vacations before June 15 or after July 12 to participate in the heavy selling period

Previously approved vacation will be allowed where voluntary rescheduling is not feasible

No additional vacation will be approved for 6/15 – 7/12

If customer traffic is manageable, there may be an opportunity to approve vacation toward the end of the period. Managers will communicate updates as they become available.