I hear this exclamation every now and again, and it must be getting popular enough to have reached the public mind in general, because I just heard it on an advertisement for an internet talk show. While I enjoy finally hitting the weekend like so many others, I'm not fond of the phrase. Is Friday now a weekly holiday? If so, what are we celebrating? The answer to the second question unnerves me.
The specialized celebratory greeting definitely shows us that Friday's become some sort of weekly holiday. Holidays are nice and I think we should take whatever opportunities to celebrate that we have so that doesn't have to be a bad thing. The question is what we're celebrating, and unfortunately the answer is straightforward. We're happy collectively to see the end of the work week. The fact that we're happy enough in our collective consciousness to hallow (the word holiday is derived from holy day) our escape from working each week reveals how deeply we must hate our work, and that's a much deeper problem.
Why do we hate work so much that we rejoice the way we do over the weekly liberation from it? What makes our work so unrewarding that we rejoice in such a way once it's over? Many people today argue that that's the nature of work, that if we enjoyed something it would be play. Mark Twain posits the idea that, "Work consists of whatever a body is OBLIGED to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do." This holds some truth, but I also feel there's something crucially missing. We go to our jobs and trudge through the days so that they'll give us the money to pay our bills. Sadly, this seems to be the way the world is, but it doesn't have to be so.
As discussed a little here and in Jane McGonigal's fine work Reality is Broken the world (or the US at least) is facing a (really weird) crisis. It's a crisis of engagement. Our entertainment has so far outstripped education, possibly face to face social interaction, and definitely work that we're having trouble caring about these things and being happy when we're involved in them anymore. It pales that poorly to the things that entertain us.
Think about how sad it is that for so many people taking care of a virtual farm (Farmville) is more interesting and engaging than what they do normally in life. Farming is at least traditionally viewed as a venture quintessentially representative of working hard just to subsist, and yet with the tools available to modern game designers and some imagination it's become a lot more exciting and fun that we'd rather do that than listen to a lecture in school or (for one working in retail, let's say) help someone find something in a store.
I've often worked retail, so let me use that as an example. One of the problems is how easily we feel unrecognized in work these days. Perhaps confounding the problem further is the "trophies for breathing" culture that's also creeping in, but it is pretty easy to feel unappreciated since the people we help we only interact with for a few minutes and our bosses are just there to tell us what we're supposed to do next. A simple initiative a company could do to offset this for retail employees is a simple incentive system of giving employees points when they do things to further company goals (upselling, excellent customer service, efficient work during high traffic periods, etc.). Ideally, these points would eventually be redeemable for monetary or otherwise physical rewards, but just having a consistent recognition I feel would improve the workplace. Employees would be rewarded for sticking with a company and working hard toward company goals by having a "lifetime score" with the company that would constantly increase.
Though this seems like it would be a momentous burden on management (and, indeed, takes a degree of skill to pay close enough attention to reward points often enough, without giving away points just for breathing and making them meaningful, but also not being too stingy and creating dynamics of teacher's pet/boss's friend through the point system), it could also be a great way to simply frame managerial goals. We're trying to increase net sales, double points for upselling this week! The most important thing at widgets and such is customer service, examples of excellent customer service always receive at least ten points! We know this is a stressful job, so working through the lunch rush of the day earns you 5 points! Think of the last three phrases without the point framework in place. You might have even heard similar things from management, but do they ring less hollow when there's a concrete form of recognition attached?
The weekend will always be nice, and we'll probably always be glad to do something else than our job for a day or two (though even this is debatable, ask the enthusiast/addict to whichever Facebook game/Online MMORPG if they've ever tweaked just a little on a vacation because they weren't "harvesting their crops" or "missing out on XP"), but it doesn't have to be a glorious liberation from the nigh on slavery of our weekly work. We can engage people in the things they do every day if we only choose to believe that all work is worthy of engagement and make an effort to make it involving instead of just hoping that money we pay will keep our employees there.
Despite all I've said, I like the idea of a weekly holiday. After all that's the idea of the Sabbath, and I find a great deal of worth in that. I've even heard that, perhaps similarly to "Happy Friday" it was common among the ancient Jews to greet each other with "Shalom Sabbat" (Peaceful Sabbath). The difference I see is that the Sabbath is deliberate and a focused effort. It's a day we take and set apart to focus on holy things and to rest from what wearies us in the world. It's devoting ourselves to something, rather than a reflection of the fact that we've become woefully not devoted to what we do everyday. The holy is something that I would like us to celebrate on a weekly basis, our lack of interest in much of our day to day lives is not.
