I don’t often pick favorites. I don’t have a favorite color, or food, and up until I entered the publishing industry, I would have declared that same unbiased view on days of the week. Sure, Wednesday is termed hump day and is closer to the weekend, but to me, it may as well have been Monday or Tuesday – at the time, it made no real difference to me.
Enter Summer Fridays.
Companies on the creative end — advertising, public relations, publishing, etc. — operate on some variation of a slowed summer schedule, where employees have an early-release-style benefit most, if not all Fridays from Memorial Day until Labor Day.
My first taste of Summer Fridays should have excited me — the idea of working an extra half hour Monday-Thursday, and then having an early release every Friday. There was even a clause that if you worked for a full Friday, with your manager’s approval, you could take off the entire following Friday. Young and naive, I didn’t take advantage of my first summer with this industry perk. Instead, I worked full Fridays throughout the summer, thinking, maybe next year.
And, so, here we are. I really like my job, and the work I get to do — and trust me there is plenty of it — but pulling myself away regularly is difficult. So, instead, I’ve found my own ways to enjoy Fridays this summer when I can’t get to Long Island or the Hamptons. I work late pretty often, sometimes past 8 0r 9, and being at the office alone at that hour is neither fun, nor comforting. That said, being alone at the office at 3 p.m. on a Friday is kind of magical. No foot traffic, plenty of sunlight (on a good day).
Silence is golden, sure, but I’ve also been lucky enough to have gone away a bit over the summer, and without those 2 p.m. early releases, I’m not sure I would have been able to finagle said adventures.
August is reaching its half-way point, and soon, Summer Fridays will be retired and hopefully revisited in 2012. With three Fridays left, I’ll find myself in DC, Long Island, and finally, in Detroit.
Are you treated to Summer Fridays? If so, how are you spending your final 3?
I’m jealous of your Summer Fridays and your adventures to Long Island and the Hamptons. Perhaps I should just be thankful that I have always had jobs that allow me to get away at 5pm on a regular basis.
Don’t be jealous! Nothing I do is ever truly an adventure.