The man who saved Mondays

I succumbed to ice cream tonight. Yes, a moment of weakness that'll take months to correct. I came to the crossroad, one path leading to a healthy tofu dinner, the other straight to rocky road hell. I tell you, the road to obesity is lined with soft gooey marshmallows.

And the thing about temptation is that you can never stop at the first step. First, you look. Then you smell sugary, chocolatey creaminess. Then you touch it, and let the sinfully sweet syrup drip town your fingertips, until it threatens to drip to the ground. You save it with your tongue, and you taste it. Pandora's box ensues, and you're left with that lost expression on your face, unbelieving that you ate the whole damn tub. And you just know that was good, but it could be better.

You're in for it now, as you declare whatever day it is to be your official "sin-day".

So now I'm gorging on potato chips and a non-diet soda, having been released from guilt on this unofficial holiday.

*****

The office was a dangerous place today. Snipers were eying my every move, not even bothering to camouflage themselves. To everyone, I was the evil tyrant out to undermine everyone's happiness. My calls never got to me, my emails ignored, and I've had to repeat myself every time I opened my mouth as no one cared to listen.

All because I was the guy who brought back Mondays.

You see, during the start of the year there was this big town-hall type meeting. Costs were skyrocketing, specifically electricity and fuel. Everyone was invited to share their ideas on managing the impending crisis. Proposals from decreasing the number of fluorescent bulbs in use to switching to daylight saving time were thrown around, the pros and cons discussed and weighed. Then one person called for canceling Mondays. He/she got the proverbial pat on the back from everyone, a hero was found!

What was my suggestion? None. At the time, I wasn't in the office. I wasn't even on the same altitude. I was 32,000 kilometers high up in the air en route to a business meeting 500 miles away.

Back at the office, everyone was high-fiving everyone else. Mondays were non-existent at the office starting the next week. Rather, office hours were scheduled from Tuesdays to Fridays, with 10 hour days. Everyone would come in half an hour earlier and leave an hour and a half later. The plan was that they would save a full hour of electricity (applying the DST rationale) as well as transportation expenses via the company shuttle service. Not only that, each person would also save on laundry, fare, lunch and get an automatic 3-day weekend. Classic win-win situation, it would seem.

But I disagreed. Yeah, such an ass, huh?

Because I was on the selling side of the business, naturally one less day kinda seemed ridiculous. I tried to have the scheme derailed, but the euphoria was at a high that it drowned out any protest that I made. So I made up for it with the only thing that was in my control, and had myself and one of my staff come in on Mondays. She hated me for it, of course, so we reached a compromise that she could take Fridays off instead.

The scheme ran for 4 months, in several variations depending on what work needed to be done. It dawned on them that Mondays were a busy day for most (if not all) the other firms we did business with. They tried working with a skeletal force on a rotating basis on Mondays, but this kinda defeated the savings that 4-day workweeks aimed to deliver. But by this time, they had grown accustomed to the schedule and were trying to get around the kinks to save it. There were vacations booked, dates planned and the thought of a 3-day weekend every week was just too fabulous to give up. It didn't help that the decision was made via consensus of everyone, because let's face it, people are idiots.

This marked my first serious attempt to have the scheme abolished, sensing a weakness. I pointed out the downsides of not having work on Mondays, the inconvenience we were causing clients, as well as to myself. Personally, I was irritated that things didn't get done on time. The half hour in the mornings seemed to be dedicated to eating their breakfasts (as the clients didn't come in before 8am anyway) and the hour and a half extension saw most people milling around the water cooler, doing nothing as work wasn't coming in after 5. I questioned how people were handling the workload, and how little work was getting done despite the extended hours. I got shot down of course, savings were still the priority, and whatever gripes I had could be worked out with a more effective system, they argued. The scheme lived on for another 3 months with more variations and fixes.

Today, I saved Mondays.

In the past 6 months, sales exhibited a downward trend. It had grown to an alarming rate that the big boss had me do a lot of explaining. A WHOLE LOT. I crunched the numbers, made forecasts, plotted charts, extracted whatever analysis I could out of what I had. Things weren't looking rosy however I looked at it. This didn't please my boss, I wasn't looking at the numbers hard enough, close enough. So I dug deeper, and meticulously combed each single account of the 600 regular clients we had. Each single one, dammit!

Then the answer jumped out from the numbers. We weren't losing clients, we were working slower. Thus, sales were turned around slower, creating an increasing rate of backlogs which are choking off sales. On the other end of the business spectrum, we were losing the opportunity to get to new clients "faster", too. So this clearly didn't help either.

Yesterday, I pitched this 'excuse' to the big boss. He sat back, thought for a moment and reached out for his phone. He called up our accountant to ask how much we were saving each month with the 4-hour workweek. The answer wasn't encouraging: P12,000. That was like half a drop in the ocean of our monthly expenses. Then came the dreaded words: "Are you sure about your analysis?". It was now my competence on the line.

The announcement was made this morning, to a groaning audience. People were in panic, offering other alternatives and fixes. When these were shot down, they pointed out the savings that we would be losing out on. Since this was now clearly negligible, pleas for a stay for at least a month were proposed. Sorry chumps, no cigar.

Of course, it was not lost on the other bosses to point out that it was due to poor sales that the scheme had been scrapped, and that I suggested it. Their tone reeked of a sabotage on my part. Crap. No one wanted to take the hit, so guess who the lucky goat is?

So if you're reading this, Monday, you better be friggin' grateful!