Mon 25 Feb 2008
It’s a bad cliche and a weekly truth for folks working on a M-F schedule: nobody likes Monday. The weekend is over, the workweek recommences; things left dangling on Friday have to be caught back up with; next weekend could literally not be further away.
But is the notion of Monday’s badness — so celebrated (and is this a distinctly American thing? Distinctly Western?) in pop culture — something we collectively trump up and colloborate on just to have something to get together against? Is Monday made better for us by an unspoken agreement to see it as awful?
Posted by Josh Millard3 answers so far!
Suffering in silence, apparently.
I don’t want to talk about it, ok?
I was waiting to see what others said about this, because I set my own hours. That means I could be up at 10:30 on a Sunday night working on a project, but reading BBQ on a Monday afternoon. Sometimes I start my work day at 5:00 a.m. and go till 9:00 or 10:00 and take a break to do laundry or shopping for supper.
From an historical perspective, a 40-hour workweek is relatively new. This Wikipedia entry not only refers to “Mondayitis,” but has a reference to number of hours worked per year by peasants compared to workers during the Industrial Revolution.
Perhaps the Monday Blues are not so much a factor of having to work as a sign that the worker is doing something they do not love. And I agree that it is a common thing, much like people complaining about the weather. However, it is easier to change jobs than it is to change the weather.
And no, not all countries start their weeks on Mondays.
Personally, I believe everyone should be able to set their own hours. I used to wonder at people in India who came in at 9:00 and left early, but then they were fine being available for conference calls at 11:00 at night. Their hours seemed to make more sense to me, go in at a reasonable time, work for a while, leave and go home to eat or nap, then do some more work.
I’d love to hear from people who live in other countries about this.