Fridays

I hate working late on a Friday. Friday is for being productive in the morning tp celar the decks (between thinking about lunch), followed by a longer-than normal lunch, followed by a wind-down sort of afternoon that consists mainly of gabbing with co-workers, discussing weekend plans or lamenting the lack thereof, bitching about upper management, etc. A slightly early exit ideally follows and one starts the weekend happy, refreshed, and full of fun and life.

Then are Fridays like this one. Things that should've happened first thing didn't happen until the early afternoon, forcing Me into a reverse of what Friday should be: A boring and unenjoyable morning as the frustration slowly mounts and the vague terror that goes with it as one mentally calculates the diminsihing hours of the work day, followed by a hasty lunch and a mad tense scramable at the end to not be a total loser and end up working really late on a Friday.

Well, this clearly falls under My catchall operating principle of the universe, "stuff happens," but, fuck, I hate it when this sort of stuff happens to Me. Don't they know I'm Mistress of the Universe? I mean, really . . .

Along these lines, I present following helpful guide for making Fridays at the office more pleasant for everyone.

1. If you are just not into it on a Friday, and you know that people will be depending on you for things, do everyone a favor and call in sick, or develop a sudden case of dengue fever or something and GO HOME. Make sure you take with you when you leave anything that will allow someone else to do what you should've done, since the over-zealous weasel boss will doubtless think of this, having just come back from boss training where they taught him all about delegation and back-ups plans and the like.

2. Do not schedule any meeting(s) for a Friday. No one is into it. Only shame and disrespect cna come to you. The following exceptions do however apply:

A. Catered lunch meetings with really good food are permissable on Fridays, if there is no more than 15 minutes of actual meeting business and two hours have been blocked off for the meeting.

B. Friday morning meetings are permissable, if bagels and good coffee are provided and the subject matter is not too taxing.

C. A Friday afternoon meetings are allowed if and only if they take place offsite, and it's clearly understood that no one will be coming back to the office afterwards. Again, given that it's Friday afternoon, the ratio of actual meeting agenda to idle chatter must be appropriate.

3. OK, we all know you're an ace . . . you're going places. You work 70 hours a week and everyone in management knows it. You're going to be youngest VP/partner/regional manager in the history of the company. You take work home, you work while grocery shopping, bringing in new business and closing deals on your hands free cell phone.

That's great. But guess what? Your job isn't that important. The fate of the company, the destiny of nations, tomorrow's sunrise . . . none of them hinge on you working so damn much and trying to look good doing it. Fridays are the time not only to realize this for yourself, but to stop inflicting your warped sense of self-importance on the rest of us. Lighten up -- it's Friday!

4. Do not, and this is very important, talk to the boss about any problems on a Friday. The boss is genetically programmed to respond to problems in ways that the staff is going to find massively inconvenient. No one needs this on a Friday. Whatever is wrong will still be wrong on Monday morning, at which time you can revel in describing it to the boss in luxuriant detail while you hang on every word of his forceful and brilliant analysis.

5. Along those same lines . . . do not voice any birght ideas on a Friday. Nothing good can come of it. If you really have to tell someone, see 2C above and schedule an last-minute "off-site meeting" for the afternoon.

I wish everyone a great weekend.