Sunday offers a good time to get work done
By Angela Lin, Globe Correspondent, 9/12/04
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Globe Illustration/Anthony Schultz
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It's a Sunday ritual as familiar as going to church or reading the newspaper. In the late afternoon, I turn on my PC and start clicking on the mouse. E-mail comes first. That's when I see that I'm not alone. ''They'' are out there, too.
My friends, family, and medical colleagues are working online in a parallel universe.
I can almost always count on hearing from another geneticist at a local hospital. There are messages from Lisa on the West Coast. She's the president of an advocacy group with whom I network. A note from Raoul in the Netherlands makes it clear this is an international phenomenon even with the time zone correction. Later comes a light-hearted missive from Tonie in Baltimore.
Whether it's across Route 128 or across the Atlantic, we're all working on Sunday.
A part of my brain screams out, ''Why are we doing this! What's happened to Sunday as a day of rest?'' The other part answers, ''It has been divvied up over the course of the week. Don't you remember that you went on your son's class trip to the science museum last Thursday? And that Wednesday was an early release school day, so you had to cut short your office time?''
Sunday functions both as makeup and spillover day for those who work during the week. In fact, I started this article at the hospital during a break one Sunday afternoon when I was looking over some files for a project.
You can duplicate this scene in workplaces and home offices around this city on any given Sunday. Unlike Melina Mercouri who smirked about ''Never on Sunday,'' the rest of us have become slaves to Sunday labor.
In our household, the weekend begins with piano or guitar lessons, followed by sports practice or a game. We run errands, do chores, cook, walk the dog.
Saturday nights are ''parent dates,'' gatherings with family friends, or couch potato time watching baseball or a video.
By default, Sunday becomes the spare day for work. But, as my friend Lisa quipped, ''I'm not sure if the week pushes into the weekend, or the weekend pushes into the start of the week.''
My husband is often my conscience when it comes to my diligent work habits. ''You work all the time. Even on Sunday,'' he says. Then he nods his head ruefully. ''But, it's not only you. I do, too.''
My husband works in sales, and needs Sunday night to prepare for out-of-town trips.
When work needs to be done, many of us have no choice but to use precious weekend time. Take me and multiply by the thousands of workers who improvise their workweek here and there.
Of course, it's not just about Sunday. It's about the occasional Saturday and Saturday night. A couple of months ago, I popped open my e-mail at about 11 p.m., an activity prompted by a looming deadline. I found another colleague writing from Philadelphia.
''I liked your proposal,'' she wrote, ''and would be happy to pursue the discussion.''
Now? When I whined in my message that we shouldn't have been working so late, she explained that she had been ''away for two measly days, and came back to 100 e-mails'' needing her attention.
Working on Sunday isn't the bane of just families. A colleague from the hospital, a mother of two grown children, pointed out, ''A lot of us empty-nesters find Sunday increasingly turning into a work day. During the week, I often need to dash out from the office to deal with a home contractor or car repair. When Sunday rolls around I have to make up those lost hours spent away from the hospital.''
For many Christians, Sunday is synonymous with going to church. The most devout believe that the commandment to rest on the Sabbath can't be taken lightly. Those who work on Sunday are viewed by some as violating the sanctity of a sacred day, at worst, and ruining a weekend, at least.
Is there an upside? Instead of looking at Sunday tasks as the weekend blown, I take solace in knowing it frees up my time during the week. As a working mother, I'm grateful for flexibility and time shifting. I can't complain.
Earlier in the week, I had been able to pick up my son and his pals from camp, and host them for dinner.
I watched both of my son's evening Little League games, a cherished six-hour luxury.
I eked out precious time midweek to watch some of the Red Sox games with my husband, son, and dog. The grocery shopping, several loads of laundry, and some homecooked meals got done.
Let's face it: the phrase ''24/7'' includes Sunday as part of the ''7.'' And some find it the best day to get work done. My friend David spoke with awe of the church-like quietude he found in his usually busy office one Sunday.
''I got up before everyone else, and accomplished in four hours what would have taken me 8 hours during the week,'' he said.
Hardly the words of a man suffering from working a weekend day.
Something's gotta give when people want to balance work with life. Some can afford the luxury of paying people to do their household tasks, others skip activities altogether. For me, working late nights and putting in some weekend hours balances out the chunks of time for family.
Is it worth it? I'm writing about it and smiling - wryly. As long as I get the time I need during the week for the things I want, it's a shift that works for me.
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