Weekends / In Favor of the Four Day Work Week

Now that I'm in the "real world," I'm starting to live for weekends. When you're in school, everyday that you don't have class is a weekend. So for me I had like 4 day weekends every weekend. Needless to say, only having two days when I had four is an adjustment. Considering I also had 6 some months of unemployment where I had 6 straight months of weekend, it's another adjustment.

I personally am struggling with the change. I'm exhausted by the end of the work day (even though I work virtually - that post to come later) and just want to veg out and relax. Maybe I'm just lazy. Personally I was never the kid that enjoyed going from work to dinner to someones apartment and then be home around 10 or 11. I like to have time to myself. Just to watch TV or go to the gym or do whatever. Not enough hours in the work day to do everything I want.

A popular thing to do is travel. Especially now that I'm out of school, go travel to see my school friends who aren't in NY. Yet I hate that weekends are so short. If I wanted to go to anywhere but Philly, I will not get in until at least 11 PM that Friday night. And that's being generous. Good luck getting out of New York City on a Friday night on time. It's a massacre. So if I get in at 11 or midnight, that night is pretty much done.

So you have all day Saturday, and then really half of Sunday because you have to get back home. All that traveling for a day and a half? That's brutal. Weekends are way to short to begin with, but it's even shorter when you spend 10 of the 50 some hours traveling.

I've been having this discussion a lot with my buddies lately - who the hell decided it should be a five day work week? If you work the normal weekday, you're working roughly 250 days a year, while you get off for 115. I don't understand why there's that imbalance. When I was job hunting, a lot of places talked about a Life/Work balance. I don't know what they're talking about, because there is no balance here. If we changed to a four day week, it would be more of a balance - still favored towards the work side of it, but less so. I think everyone would be less stressed. You have more time to do the things you want to do, as opposed to not having the time (or having to take time off from work) to do much of anything.

I think me and my friends are just in the rebellious phase. It's our first year out in the world and it's not the same as school. It's a drag for the 5 days a week and only 2 days to ourselves. And this is "how it is" unfortunately. It makes no sense. I don't know why anyone set it up like this. I don't like it at all, but I am nowhere near enough to change society or the way we live. I'm just a kid on my small digital soapbox.

Now, back to work!