A Case for the Mondays

Seriously, grandma, I get it.

“Ah…Monday.” We’ve all heard it a million times, right? And don’t act like you don’t know what context I mean that in: this is GG, I’m not talking about the time in kindergarten when we learned what all the days of the week are – I’m talking about the bane of your coworkers’ collective existence. Monday. Fuckin’ Monday. MONDAY. A day so universally hated everyone comments on it, including/especially the media. From Office Space to Garfield and everywhere in between, I don’t think I’m overstating anything when I say Monday is literally the worst thing to ever happen in human history even if you combined all of the bad things into one super bad thing.

(By the way, why does Garfield hate Mondays so much? What is he so happy about during the weekend that Monday takes away from him? He doesn’t have a job, his day-to-day responsibilities are basically limited to eating lasagna and mocking Jon…his Mondays sound pretty fuckin’ cool if you ask me.)

(Oh, and one more quick detour while I’m at it [I know, sorry, I’m all over the place today]: If you haven’t ever seen Lasagna Cat or Garfield Minus Garfield, do yourself a favor and check out both. They’re both excellent, excellent reimaginations of Garfield. Totally worth your time.)

Monday though, you guys, seriously though: it’s the worst right? Oh wait a second: Nope. Turns out you’re just lazy and lame and looking for any reason you can find to complain. Most people thrive on complaining (but, uh, not ST and I, that would be ridiculous) – Monday is easily the second-best day of the week, and if anything it’s doing you a FAVOR by filling the “I need to complain about something” void in your life.

 

“Well fuck you TOO, asshole.”

 

Look, I love bitching about menial things as much as the next person – possibly much, much more so. And trust me, I get it: I love my weekend time, since it’s when I get my best drinking done. The irony here, though, is that Monday is the second-best day of the standard work week. Seriously, it’s true — and I’m not just saying that because of Monday Night Football (although let’s be honest, that’s a nice perk during football season). Don’t worry, I’ll explain why in due time. And that time is now!

Think about how much work ACTUALLY gets done on a Monday. When’s the last time you had a truly productive Monday? If people are checked out on Friday afternoon, as they almost always claim to be, they’re damn sure just as absent-minded on Monday mornings. Yes, I know it’s symbolically the start of a five-day work week, but Monday is like a mini-Friday – no one bats an eye if you creep in late on Monday morning, and people generally accept that it’s the best time to reset yourself and plan out the rest of your week. In other words, you can get away with doing almost literally nothing on Monday and chalk it up solely to the fact that Monday is Monday. That’s the craziest kind of tautological!

Anecdotally speaking, I just looked at my calendar going back to the start of June. In total, I counted 12 meetings scheduled on Mondays. Here’s how they break down:

 

• 6 recurring half-hour conference calls to keep tabs on a pilot program we were running in Chicago
• 4 ad-hoc meetings (each an hour long) about expense tracking
• 1 invitation to watch the World Cup (three hours)
• 1 birthday celebration with cake and ice cream (half an hour)

 

Now, it’s not like my calendar is normally inundated with meetings, but 12 meetings over the course of 17 Mondays is pretty damn good – especially since most of those were either shortened/cancelled (and two of them were, you know, unrelated to work). I’ve been busy on some of those days, to be sure, but no more so than any other day of the week. But to hear most people tell it, each and every Monday is full of back-to-back triple-booked meetings and conference calls that are totally unavoidable. Also, half of those meetings consist of being literally punched in the face and genitals in alternating order. Take it from someone who is prone to hyperbole: most people are insanely prone to hyperbole.

In short, Mondays are awesome, if for no other reason than the fact they’re such a self-fulfilling prophecy: Mondays are brutal and dreary, ergo people drag their feet and don’t put forth their best effort, putting off work as long as possible – this, in turn, creates a feedback loop wherein it’s socially acceptable to complain about Mondays since everyone else does, keeping the cycle of unproductive behavior lazily turning in a slow and apathetic circle. And on top of that? People are all-too willing to listen to you reinforce their own beliefs about how awful Monday is! Mondays are truly the gift that keeps on giving and I kind of love them a little bit, but not in that way. Well…OK, a little bit in that way. Half and half, I guess. I’m gonna go dry hump my calendar, is what I’m telling you. Happy Monday!

–jsg