Everyone needs a philosophy to live by. I actually have a few of them, and one is if God wanted me to work on weekends he would've called those days Monday 1 and Monday 2. But he didn't, and I don't.
Anyway, there are plenty of times writing these posts feels like work. You know, the same way you feel when you read them. So since tonight is the official start of my weekend, it's pencils (keyboard) down.
In that spirit, I've opted for a re-post from my critically acclaimed, almost award-winning, fan favorite "Don't Ask" series. I think it'll be a perfectly swell start to your weekend.
Please to enjoy.
Well, tonight's your lucky night. I'm posting my latest in the series, and it's about a particular nuisance that effects every creative person in the business: working the weekend.
Jay Chiat of Chiat/Day fame had a quote that's been misquoted and bounced around ad agencies ever since he said it. If you're in advertising, you're already saying it to yourself: "If you're not here on Saturday, don't bother coming in on Sunday."
Looks like I won't be seeing you Sunday.
Agencies are notorious for their outsized and aggressive disregard for both working smart and your life. If they did the first one, working weekends wouldn't happen nearly as often as it does. Which would mean you'd get some of your life back.
Since I believe agencies will start working smart and utilizing their time more efficiently about the same time I ride my unicorn to Xanadu while drinking from the Holy Grail, I've chosen not to wait. I'm taking it back. Weekends are personal time. They're days of rest by definition. They are non-work days. Here's what I do on weekends. I spend time with my kids. I go out with the wife. I get things done around the house. I veg and binge Breaking Bad again.
Know what I don't do? Work.
Maybe if there were fewer 12-person meetings to kick-off the latest banner ad, not as many mandatory attendance pep talks to rally the troops, and less presentations to the staff from the Executive Group Specialist In Experimental Branding Strategy & Innovative Demographic Search Engine Optimization Solutions, there'd be enough time during the week to get the actual, bill-paying, income producing work done.
Not to brag, but because I have this policy of no weekends, I get my work done during the week. When I pack up Friday night, everything that needed to be done is done. Monday will bring a whole new set of challenges, and I'll get those done during the next five days too.
I know this is a radical position for a freelancer with a kid in college to take. Especially since weekends are usually double time. At a nice day rate, that can add up pretty quick. I know freelancers that hope for weekend work - something about gettin' while the gettin's good. Whatever. When your relationship with your kids turns into a Harry Chapin song, don't come crying to me.
Don't get me wrong. This is not to say I haven't worked weekends and won't again on those very few occasions it's necessary. But it usually isn't, despite the desperation, authoritative tone, insinuations about reputations and false logic that since they have to be there you have to be there. Almost as weak an argument as "If I do it for you, I have to do it for everyone else."
So go ahead, talk about how I'm too good to come in on Saturday. How I don't want to be a team player. How pissed everyone's going to be that they're at work and I'm not.
And if you want to tell me to my face, fine.
Call me. I'll be at home.
