Monday 23 March 2009

What to do about Mondays?


I've mentioned my boring but strange dreams before. I had a seriously epic one last night. It involved riding on buses, and noting that the same numbered bus route was the one I wanted at home, in Manchester, and ... somewhere else. I'm afraid I'm not sure where else my unconscious spirit got to. However, as you can imagine all of that travelling takes a lot of time, probably mainly spent waiting at cold bus stops, and consequently I got up far too late this morning.

Next time, I'll drive, and I bet I'll be awake an hour or two earlier. And they wonder why no-one likes public transport?


On the other hand, if those buses had been a bit later I wouldn't have had to get up at all. This thought occurred to me right after I remembered that I hadn't done any ironing at the weekend. And after an unbroken run of two weeks where I had my whole week's clothes ready. And because my washer drier has stopped washing/drying and started making disconcerting metallic banging noises instead, my laundry situation isn't what I'd like it to be, either. And my extensive journey had made me exhausted, so I'm still not properly awake yet. No, it might have been better for me to have skipped today.

Does anyone like Mondays? I think there are too many of them. Perhaps it would be better to have a ten day week. That way there would be a 30% reduction in Mondays. You'd work for 7 days, and then have a 3-day weekend. If you abolish public holidays, you end up with about the same number of working days in the year.

The metric week. After all, there's nothing special about 7 days. It's almost a quarter of a lunar cycle, but everyone knows that the numbers don't quite work out, so who cares?

Of course, there'd also be a 30% reduction in Bee's Friday meetings with the Great Oz, and I'd have to write 30% fewer Wordy Wednesdays. I'm struggling to find any disadvantages. Religious people would probably want to have Church days every seven, but they could do that and work some weekend days instead.

We would have to find names for 5 days (since the religious types would want to keep Sabbath and Sundays for their calendars). We could name them after continents: Ameriday, Antday, Afriday, Euraday and Ozday. Other schemes, including the French 10-day week, seem to want to number them firstday, secondday, etc, but that seems a little clunky to me.

Maybe I should start a campaign. As long as we called it the Metric Week, there would be loads of saddo-standardisers and Europhiles who'd love it. But we'd know the real reason behind it was a hatred of Mondays...

13 comments:

Unknown said...

That was a bus in Manchester, right?

Yes. Yes I'm sure it was.

Rhonda Sloan said...

I am forced to vote "no" on seven-day work weeks. I can barely make it through five days. And lately, three has been a challenge.

But then again, if I worked anywhere but AIG, I might feel differently.

Bee (the one who muses) said...

Brian, you can come do laundry with us if you want. We can use another odd ball at the laundromat.

I'm all for less meetings with OZ but if you call a day Ozday I will nickname it Barfday.

Brian o vretanos said...

Chris:

I believe that's one of the main student routes near the University...

Rhonda:

You could always take your extra weekend day as the fifth day of the week, then you'd get to work 4 days, have one day off, another 3 days, then 2 days off...

Bee:

You should start using a spell-checker. That's not how you spell "another normal person". I've got a new one arriving on Friday.

Ozday was supposed to be named after Australia, but I suppose we could equally well name it G'day ;-)

Brian o vretanos said...

A new washer/drier. Not a new normal person.

for a different kind of girl said...

This smacks of brilliance! Whatever you need me to sign, wear, or do to make this happen, I'm in!

Anonymous said...

Monday is my least favorite day of the week. I think we should get Monday and Friday off, add them to Saturday and Sunday... leaving a 3 day work week.

No?

Jean Knee said...

well I just don't know about all this.

there were quite a huge amount of people on that bus. I wonder if anyone was groped?

Tracy Rambles On And On said...

Brian Dear,
I don't like it.
I think that if we're going to add days to the week, they need to be weekend days only. Not work days. The hubs needs to have more weekend days off to help take care of his unruly children.
If you could make the weekends five days instead of two, I would be on board.
And I like names for the extra days like: Tracyday, Rambleday, Momsdayoffaday, Blogaday, Freenannyforyourunrulychildrenaday.
While the last one might be a bit long, it's one of the most important ones. That and Momsdayoffaday are most important.

Tracy Rambles On And On said...

Bee called you an oddball so I don't think we should name any days after her.

Tracy Rambles On And On said...

How about I'mEleventhaday?
Cause I am!

Tracy Rambles On And On said...

I'm starting to like this five day weekend plan thing.
Get on it and make it happen for me please Brian will you?

Brian o vretanos said...

Catscratch:

No, that's no good, because then you'd just start to hate Tuesdays instead...

Jean Knee:

I was wondering how they collected the fares for those people, and whether or not they had to lean different ways when the bus tried to turn.

Tracy:

I'm sure if Chris worked for a car manufacturer or whatever, that they'd be more than happy to let him only work (at work) for 2 days a week, but they'd only pay him 40% of what he would earn working five days. Whereas with my scheme employees don't lose any pay and employers don't lose any days' labour.

So I'm afraid that I'm not going to do the five day weekend. You only have a temporary issue with your kids. In another 20 years or so, they'll all be out working, and then you'll appreciate the 10 day week, since its 7 days of work will mean 7 days of peace for you.