Today Is One of the Laziest Work Days of the Year

In addition to running SportsLizard.com, I put my engineering degree to good use by working as a Quality Engineer out here in CT. It seems hard for me to believe, but this is the first holiday season that I haven't been a student. It is also the first holiday season that I have been out in industry. I am not sure what the day before our Christmas break will be like, but today had to be the laziest day of work ever.

The rumblings started a few days ago. People started talking about how every Wednesday before Thanksgiving people kick out early. I was curious so I asked around and it was confirmed. Unofficially everyone leaves around 2 or 3 on the day before Thanksgiving. Of course I was pumped. Any time I can get time off without using my precious vacation time is a plus.

So today came and it was a weird experience. I understand that people want to get a head start on the busiest travel day of the year. I get that. Why not make it official company policy then? Instead I just sort of noticed people starting to sneak out around 2 or so. And anyone who was there was just socializing until the "professionally acceptable" time to leave came (i.e. a few minutes after their boss left). I played along and got home by 3:45 which was pretty sweet.

But I had to wonder from a business perspective if ANYTHING got done by anyone today. See, I would be fine with people leaving early, it's the social party that would bother me if I was running the business. It really shouldn't be social day. If everyone worked hard until 3 and then left, that would be fine. You would get nearly a full days worth of work in and still get a head start on the travel. But why do people see it as a free pass to do nothing all day?

This is just another example of one of the things that drives me nuts about industry (I sense a future post dedicated to this). The business will be shut down for the next two days (we get Friday off too). Each employee should feel as though they need to get as much done as possible to make up for the lost time. The fact that they feel entitled to socialize all day shows that they truly don't care about what is best for the business (myself included). And I don't blame this on the employees. It is the responsibility of the business to make every employee a stakeholder (or steakholder as I commonly misspell it) in the business in some form so that they truly want what's best for the company. Unfortunately, I will still pull my salary regardless of the performance of the business and that makes it tough for me to care.

So what did I do with my free time? I came home and worked on the business. Why? Because I know the next few days will be booked with family obligations and there is no way that I will be able to do any more than check my email. I had to get my Weekly Report up, do a few administrative things, and make this blog post. I needed to get as much done as possible before tomorrow. This is the necessary sense of urgency that I was talking about. Because I actually care about my business, I want to make sure I leave everything in good standing before embarking on the journey over to NY to my parents house.

Anyway, it was nice to get home early. Have a great Thanksgiving everyone!