Four Days Just For Work???

If there is one thing I’ve come to know about businesses and making money, no businessman or corporate organization will ever agree to anything that will take money from them. They’re only in it for the money, anything that does the opposite of that will be like a plague to them. If building new churches was a guarantee to make your business successful, each major company in the world would build hundreds of churches every year. That is just how serious they are when it comes to money.

So, as a result, they will never agree to something that will cut down on their profits. A four-day week sounds good, but only to the employees who don’t want to work every day. Even as it stands, there are some people who work every day of the week for a ridiculous amount of money, not even up to the minimum wage. There are those who work only for six days and take the Sundays off. There are those who only work for four days, take two days off, and go on for another four days. It all depends on the kind of job you do.

I’m a remote worker, so I get to decide my hours and my work days. My clients don’t care about how many hours I put into the work or how many days I use to get the work done. All they want are results. They need to see that I’ve delivered as expected and well before the deadline. That’s the most important thing for me.

So, as a result, I get to decide when my weekend starts. And for me, it’s not usually the same with the rest of you. As it stands, my weekends begin on Sundays and it ends on Tuesdays or Wednesdays. The only way it won’t be a weekend is if I have to go to class, but as for work, I don’t really get much of it on those days. Mondays are the best because they are my freest days. While everyone else is angry about having to begin the work week, I remain in bed and bury my head in the pillow because Life Is Just So Good!

But then, in a broader sense, taking it all away from remote work or whatnot, the four-day workweek might sound great, but there will be consequences. Nothing comes for nothing, so there would have to be a way to make up. If the hours are not increased, reducing the work days will also reduce the productivity of the company which will in turn reduce the earnings and in the long run, the salaries will be affected.

However, if the hours are increased, the employers have to be ready to work for nothing less than 10-12 hours each day. You would be leaving your home earlier than you currently do and also leave work later than you currently do. There will be more pressure to get things done because you now have four days to round them up instead of five. You’ll only be able to spend time with your family on weekends, but every other day, there will be no time at all.

It will be good and all, coming with a lot of perks, but there will be some major consequences that we must be willing to face. If I were an employee, I don’t think I would enjoy it that way. Working longer hours and being tired all the time is not a system I would want to embrace.

But then, I’m sure that if the government wants to do this, they will know just how to enact it in a way that it would work best for everyone. Or at least, I believe they would. But who cares, all I know for now is that the issue of a four-day workweek is not even up for discussion in Nigeria. Maybe once it starts gaining traction all over the world, we’ll join the chat.

After all, Friday is already a half-work day, what’s so bad about making it a non-work day?