Fried day
1/2/2004
IT'S FRIDAY, but not really -- not in the T.G.I.F. sense that comes after four days on the job. People who are working today most likely had yesterday off, and maybe took Wednesday off, too, which makes this Friday feel more like a Monday, though not as bad as the real Monday is going to feel three days from now. A Friday coming at the end of two intense holiday weeks has little traction on the whoopee front. If there is a regular postwork office gang gathering to cheer the start of weekends, it has probably been canceled because so many people are away, or simply partied out.
The people at their desks also feel exhausted from all the starting and stopping of festivities. They have most likely hopscotched their way through the past two weeks, working a day here or two days there as they made the physical and psychological leap from job to Christmas tree to morning meeting to First Night and back to the job.
Many of these people are unsure of what day it is now as they spin around on their swivel chairs to study the new wall calendar and listen hard to the phone not ringing. They might even wonder why they are there and what possible business can be transacted when so much of the business world is still at home digesting cookies.
"I must be really essential," they might think, possibly out loud because nobody is there to hear. Or they might just mutter, "Am I nuts or what?"
Although a person knows that somebody has to come in to do whatever needs to be done, working the Friday after a Thursday holiday can make even those presumed essential souls feel as though the corporate Santa socked them with coal.
The toughest thing about this Friday-after, for both workers and vacationers, is that it's the beginning of the end of the celebration -- a celebration that a lot of people complained about before it started but are now loath to see go, no matter how tired they are.
Many trees and decorations will come down this weekend. Presents will have the pine needles dusted off and be given permanent residence in the house -- sometimes on a prominent shelf, other times in the dark corners where many a gewgaw has gone to die.
Sunday night will settle over a strangely empty living room, bringing the certainty of January and February in all their wintry bluntness. And Monday will move in, beginning a so-called normal week, although it will feel weird without so much as a ho-ho-ho or a gilded partridge in sight.
This coming year should be easier, with Christmas and New Year's Day falling sensibly on Saturdays, which guarantees at least one recovery day, and possibly two. But for now, those who must labor on this 'tweener day will try to hang tough -- and stay awake. This coming year should be easier, with Christmas and New Year's Day falling sensibly on Saturdays, which guarantees at least one recovery day, and possibly two. But for now, those who must labor on this 'tweener day will try to hang tough -- and stay awake.
© Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
