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• Workin’ for the Weekend

When I was a kid, my dad used to take me to work with him on Sundays. It wasn’t every Sunday necessarily. I mean, he went almost every Sunday; it’s just that I was only asked to come along on a semi-regular basis. This was probably because I treated his afternoon of work as a grab-ass party for myself and my imaginary friends. Poor dad would be hunched over a desk for three hours, and I’d be leaping over and crawling under everything else that was in the big, open office. I’d stand in the break room and push vending machine buttons for minutes at a time without ever putting the first dime in the machine. I’d slide around corners and pretend to shoot people. I’d eventually get my ass chewed and spend the rest of the day sitting quietly in a corner. I’m sure working on weekends wasn’t much fun for Dad, but I always had quite a lovely time.

I still go in for a few hours on weekends these days, but there’s a lot less grab-ass involved. I mostly just go in to get some work done now, and I hardly ever pretend to shoot at anything, though sometimes I will crawl under my desk just to break things up a little. It’s not that I necessarily have to come in to work on a Sunday, but it usually makes the upcoming week go a whole hell of a lot easier. No one stops by the office, no one calls and it eventually becomes so boring that I can actually get a stunning amount of work done.

I never really think about it as being a big deal, and in fact, when I think about it, I know lots of people who work on weekends. The problem is that most of those people are bartenders, and that’s really their busy time. It’s really the opposite for me because it’s not busy at all. I sometimes think I have trouble concentrating, but being in a room by yourself makes it pretty clear that the trouble isn’t my ability to concentrate so much as it’s everyone else’s ability to leave me alone so I can concentrate. I’m not bitching, I’m just saying.

If getting things done sounds like a fine idea to you, and you think you might like working on the weekends, I ran across some tips to help you along. Have a plan and prioritize your tasks on the weekend. For example, I like to imagine getting everything I have to do for the next three weeks done on a Sunday afternoon. This, of course, never happens, which leaves me dismayed and feeling hopeless. I like this because it gives me the same temperament as everyone else come Monday morning ... even though I got a little bit of work done.

Execute your plan, and do not multitask. That’s actually the point of working a few hours on a weekend: to just focus on one thing. I’m not sure I’ve really mastered this concept 100 percent. I still stare blankly at the wall on a regular basis; it’s just nice to know no one is making fun of me for it.

Leave the office when you complete your plan. Well, I mean that’s pretty freaking obvious. Like I said, I don’t mind working on weekends, but it’s not like it’s a freaking joy for me either. It might be different if I worked in a carnival. “Wow, work was great, and I finally got that big project finished. Now I’ll get a lemon shake-up, have a ride on the Tilt-a-Whirl and maybe take a stroll around the grounds.” Trust me, no one likes work enough to stay longer than they need to on a weekend.

Communicate to other colleagues who are working that you have a lot to do and don’t have time for chit-chat. This probably won’t help in any way, but it does give you someone to blame when shit doesn’t get done like you’d hoped. I think it’s great to talk to other people and find out their views on all kinds of things ... it’s just that I prefer to do things such as that in a bar instead of at work. Actually, I prefer to do most everything in a bar, but that’s another column altogether.

The folks I’ve talked to who work on weekends every so often all say pretty much the same thing about it: fewer distractions, a jump start on the next week, more time-effective, etc. On the other side, people point out that there’s less time to rest and relax on your weekend. Sure, that’s obviously true, but it does make the next week a little more relaxing. I’d like to think my life adds up to something a little more than what happens on the weekends.

Every so often, I’ll see someone sitting in his car at a quarter to 8, just staring ahead or listening to the radio, just biding his time until it’s time for the work day to start. I swear I never understand this. I mean, I’m not always chomping at the bit to get in there, but geez Louise, I’d much rather just get to work than hate my job so much I can’t bear to be there for an extra 15 minutes. No one’s job should seem like that much work.