The Working Week

There comes a point in life when days of the week stop behaving like well-trained Labradors and start acting more like feral cats – slipping through your fingers just as you think you’ve got a firm grasp. For some, this affliction is simply an inevitable side effect of age. Retirement, I’m told, brings with it the delightful confusion of every day feeling like a Saturday. For me, however, the days went rogue for a very different reason - the curious case of the seven-day workweek.

 

Yes, you read that right – seven days. The whole lot. No weekends off for good behaviour. And it’s not because I’m some sort of workaholic martyr or driven by a misguided Protestant work ethic. No, I’ve simply found myself perpetually on call for ad hoc driving jobs that can pop up at any hour, on any day. Consequently, Saturday and Sunday have lost their distinct flavour, blending seamlessly into the porridgey mush of the week. My work hours are often of my own choosing, though I’ve never once turned down a job. The upside? One of my larger pension pots remains untouched, funding fripperies like restoring old cars or buying expensive tools.

Now, I can hear some of you gasping in horror. “But weekends are sacred!” you cry. And yes, for the nine-to-five brigade, they are. But when your calendar is dictated by the whims of a dispatcher or a last-minute job request, the weekend becomes little more than an outdated concept – like a VHS player or the phrase “Please be kind, rewind.”

Take last week, for example. I was happily bumbling along, convinced it was Wednesday, only to be told it was Friday. Friday! How did that happen? It’s like finding out you’ve skipped a chapter in a book – disorienting and mildly infuriating. And then there are those embarrassing moments when you wish someone a pleasant weekend on a Monday. Or worse, ask someone how their weekend was... on a Thursday.

It’s not just the days of the week that have gone astray. The entire concept of time has become a hazy blur. There’s no longer a clear distinction between working hours and leisure hours. You’d think this would result in a luxurious sense of freedom, but it mostly results in a sort of temporal vertigo. One moment you’re enjoying a cup of tea, the next you’re hurtling down the M5 because someone needs a last-minute car delivery to Devon or there's a car at an auction in Manchester that needs collecting.

Of course, there are upsides to this perpetual weekday shuffle. For one, I’ve become adept at dodging the dreaded Monday blues. It’s hard to dread a day when it might as well be a Tuesday or a Friday. And let’s not forget the smug satisfaction of doing one’s weekly shop on a random Tuesday morning, when the supermarket is blissfully free of weekend hordes. It’s the little things, really.

But there’s a danger in all this temporal trickery. When every day has the potential to be a workday, it’s easy to forget to carve out proper downtime. Without clear boundaries, rest can become an afterthought, rather than a necessity. And, before you know it, you’re running on autopilot, wondering why you feel perpetually knackered.

Still, I soldier on, calendar-less and confused, greeting each day with the same question: “What day is it again?” It’s become a bit of a ritual, really – a daily reminder that time is a fluid construct and that weekends are a societal invention I’ve managed to accidentally unsubscribe from.

So, if you ever catch me rambling on about my weekend plans on a Wednesday or insisting that it’s Tuesday when it’s clearly not, just humour me. I’m not entirely lost – just a little adrift in the great sea of days. And if all else fails, there’s always tea. After all, tea time is timeless.