4-Day 10-Hour Work Week. Is It Worth It?

Several months ago, our company started giving their employees the option for what is called "flex" schedules--a 10-hour day (really eleven if you count the lunch hour), 4-day work week.

I've always been curious what it would be like to have a three-day weekend every week and was eager to give it a try, but my team was small and I was basically put into a queue until we could hire on a few more people (not to support the flex schedule, but our company is growing and our team needed to expand first before they could accommodate consistently short staff on Fridays).

Management did as such and I revisited my desire to try out the flex schedule and they obliged.

This is my second week into it and, hmm... I'm not sure what to think yet.

In my early 20's I became used to long hours, physical labor, having started out working in factories. 10 - 12 hours some weeks to catch up with production requirements, sweating, standing for long hours. 2nd shifts, even 3rd shifts. Now that I work from home and work behind a desk the entire time I was thinking, "how hard can it be"?

In all honestly, the workday isn't a huge adjustment. I barely notice the difference. I adjusted my lunch time to 5:00PM--the time I usually get off work and use it to walk the dogs since they're still on the regular schedule. Jump back online for another hour and wrap things up. What I AM having a hard time adjusting to is, "what am I supposed to do on Thursday nights? What am I supposed to do during the day on Fridays, when everyone is still working?"

I'm sure this sounds like a huge dilemma, "just go out", but our lifestyle is pretty mild during the week, and we save "living it up" for weekends and pretty much do everything together. It would feel odd to go out by myself without her--not that I can't.

Perhaps I've answered my own question in regard to Thursday nights. Perhaps I'll just have a few beers and just blog?

But those Fridays...