Weekend and holidays are the most awaited and coveted (spare the workaholics) among office-goers, (irrespective of whether they slog it out or not throughout the week). Weekends are much like desserts, one wants to savour its taste in eternity and live each and every moment of it. Weekends are, perhaps most eventful as every person will have some or the other vivid story about it to tell. It could be a fight with your spouse, a romantic interlude, paddle across the beach at dusk, a nagging relative or your battered vehicle which broke down in midst of a long drive. There are stories galore. This particular essence of weekend perpetuates its sway on our senses.
Weekends hold a special space in our life, the most intoxicating one (as far as urban life is concerned because in rural India every day is a weekend for some and for others it is obscure and doesn’t exist). We utilize it in different ways. In most of the cases (especially men), people like to dream as they keep snoring all the time. Perhaps the best way to rejuvenate yourself or is it? The excuses some give are striking. It could be their extended schedule lasting up to midnight everyday or a bad boss (Oh! I’ll gloss over it, a contentious bone). But a bad boss! (The most exasperating and exhausting battle). Well, for starved single men, night clubs and parties are the destinations. Who knows they may bump into their future (potential) girlfriend or a wife (for committed ones). As far as the pot-bellied family men are concerned (Sorry if I am being obnoxious) they spend half the time in quarrels over the destination for outing. Sometimes they regret having weekends as it brings extra-work for them. Well, what people do at weekends is certainly a matter of research. What women do at weekends is a mystery which continues to confound me.
In comes the Sunday night, the night of sadists as they can enjoy watching people in pain. Sunday night is the worst period of weekend as the feeling of getting back to work starts haunting you. The more you want time to go slow, faster it slips and arrives the Monday morning.
According to a recent UK research Monday is the most popular sick day for workers calling in sick. The study conducted by a consult firm, Mercer, found that more than a third of all sick leave is taken on the first day of the week. And the most common reasons for absence were musculo-skeletal problems, viral infections and stress related illness (Oh! What causes them? A drunken brawl or a brutal battering by wife or ‘the spicy chaat’ or the most obvious one: The Monday Morning Laziness)
The study found out that 35% of all sick leave is taken on Monday. Hey, what about clubbing your Monday with the weekend and visit a hill station and escape your boss’s wrath for a day or relish the Monday morning sleep on the pretext viral fever. Well whatever be the excuse, bunking work on Monday is a pervasive syndrome be it UK or India.