The Calendar
One week from today is Christmas Day…which means two weeks from today is New Year’s Day.
And since they are both on Wednesdays this year…good luck with getting any business done between right about now and January 6. In fact, I already received my first auto-reply email, indicating that the person was out of the office…for three weeks, until that first Monday in January.
Those who are taking most of the next two weeks off are already in mental holiday mode. So essentially, productivity in our society—in some quarters, already dangerously low—will be near zero for the next 20 days or so.
I am certainly not against people taking time off to celebrate the season and to be with family; unplugging and detoxing from work is a really good thing, and I hope to someday get good at it. But every year, it just seems to creep earlier and earlier…and last longer and longer.
Holidays on Wednesdays are the worst, because they are smack dab in the middle of the week…do you take Monday off and extend the weekend on that end…or the end of the week off and extend that weekend? Or why bother, just claim to “work from home” and skate for the whole week?
This job doesn’t really lend itself to time away; after all, if more folks are off work, there’s a greater chance they might be listening to the radio, so we can’t just turn off the transmitter or do a half-baked job. But I’m struck by businesses that are not that successful—not coincidentally, they’re the ones where the first concern is how much time they can take off.
I bet there’s a direct correlation between focus on work tasks as opposed to games or time off, and higher productivity. But anyone I would ask to verify that…is probably already off through New Year’s.
