Taking the Measure

The initialism TGIT is catching on and has gotten the recognition of the New York Times. It stands for Thank God it's Thursday* and has come to prominence after Utah's 12-month successful experiment with a four-day workweek for many state employees.

Reports the Times, "The state found that its compressed workweek resulted in a 13% reduction in energy use and estimated that employees saved as much as $6 million in gasoline costs. Altogether, the initiative will cut the state’s greenhouse-gas emissions by more than 12,000 metric tons a year. And perhaps not surprisingly, 82% of state workers say they want to keep the new schedule." Lori Wadsworth, a professor at Brigham Young University who helped survey state employees, said the few people who didn't like the schedule had trouble finding extended day care.

The Times reports that other state and municipal governments are following Utah's lead, noting that GM has just instituted a four 10-hour-day workweek at several of its plants. The paper quotes R. Michael Fischl, an associate dean at the University of Connecticut’s law school, as saying, "There is a sense that this is ready to take off." Fischl will be participating in an October 30 symposium on the four-day workweek at the University of Connecticut School of Law. Titled "Redefining Work: Implications of the Four-Day Work Week," the event will address reducing the conflict between work responsibilities and family and community commitments, improving workplace morale and reducing absenteeism and stress-based injuries, reducing unemployment, reducing energy use, and reducing commuting times.

The four-day workweek might work for Test & Measurement World, but it probably wouldn't work for EDN, where we produce newsletters five days a week. Although we may have to rethink that schedule if many of our readers adopt a four-day workweek.

What do you think? Would you prefer a four-day workweek, and could you get your job done on that schedule?

Would you prefer to work Monday through Thursday, or perhaps Tuesday through Friday? (The later would preserve TGIF as the end-of-the-week initialism of choice.) Or how about Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday?

Post your comments below.

*For the motivated, optimistic people who love their jobs, TGIT stands for Thank God it's Today.