How To Turn Every Weekend Into A Three-Day Weekend

I’m as grateful as anyone for all the three-day weekends we have in January and February, but I can’t be the only one who thinks “Presidents Day” is something of a cop-out. Day, singular. How is it fair that we have to keep dealing with new presidents, but the number of days off stays constant?

However, fear not. I’ve got some fun, innovative ideas to turn every weekend of 2023 into three-day ragers (or loungefests, if you’re in your 30s, or even just the tired part of your 20s). Read on for ideas:

Don’t schedule unpleasant meetings on Fridays. Sometimes, I think the best part of a three-day weekend isn’t actually three days out of the office — it’s three days without your least favorite part of the job. So, if you simply refuse to coordinate with Pam from marketing (who once declined a green juice because she was “off sugar”) about your weekly check-ins, you may start to feel your heart rate go down starting as early as Thursday night.

Treat yourself to a special lunch every Friday. Weekdays are usually the time for saying, “Well, I’m going to be miserable anyway, so I may as well eat a wilted salad that matches my mood.” Fortunately, if you want Friday to feel like it’s still part of the weekend, it’s as easy as eating a doughnut for lunch. An added bonus is that it’s significantly faster to eat, and you won’t need to make small talk with your co-workers for more than a few minutes.

Sneak out a little early on Fridays. It’s really the full day we dread — a half-day is as good as a day off in my opinion! So leave work at 4:45. That’s six hours earlier than usual in this Capitalist Hell.

Arrive at work on Friday with a glaring hangover. Nothing says “three-day weekend” like getting sh*tfaced on a Thursday. It’s also a good way of saying “I wish I were still in college!” If your hangover is bad enough, you may get to spend the morning vomiting rather than editing PowerPoints. Nice!

Make Fridays your WFH day. And then take out the “work” part.

Break out in weekly coughing fits at the all-hands on Thursdays. People will be begging you to stay home the next day.

Go to a funeral. Or 67 of them. My tip is to figure out how many weeks total you want to be at a company, and then your first week there, claim to have that many great-aunts. If pressed for more details, say “You know how it was in the 1800s,” which should shut down any and all questions, since they likely do not know how it was, nor does anyone want to ask why your great-aunts were alive then.

Be so bad at your job that no one asks you to do anything on Friday. If you play your cards right, they won’t ask you to do anything on the other days, either. Not since you broke the fifth stapler.

Respect your co-workers on Fridays. By staying home, of course. Everyone deserves to end the week in peace. You don’t want to interrupt that.

Be unemployed. This is a brilliant strategy I call the Seven-Day Weekend. Try it!