It’s Friday afternoon. A special time. When I look back over my working career, in which I have hardly taken a day off (other than family holidays) for well over 50 years, I treasure those moments. Friday afternoon.

It’s hard to describe the feeling.  It’s a release I suppose.  All week you have been fighting deadlines, negotiating deals, focussing on projects, chasing sales and, in my case at least, wrestling with recalcitrant technology that was never designed for the likes of me to understand.  Then comes that moment: maybe about 3pm, or 4, when you realise that the slide to the weekend has started and there is little you can do to stop it, even if you wanted to – which you don’t. You are, once again, free. And, even though I have spent most of my life working for myself, that release is still the same.  Although I could have taken an early bath at any time and nobody would have objected, Friday afternoon gives me permission, and everyone else joins in.  Those four words, ‘have a nice weekend’ can, after a week full of stress, sound like angels singing, even if you do enjoy your job.

The first time I remember feeling that way was when we started the moving company in the 1970s.  We were in Park Royal in west London, then billed as Europe’s largest industrial estate.  Every night, when the crews came back it was an intense process of unloading and reloading ready for the next day.  But on Friday, it was a bit more relaxed.  Yes, we knew Monday wasn’t far off, but we could take a beat.  Stop for a breath.  And take all the chaps to the Grand Junction Arms for a couple of well-earned pints. 

It was similar when I had a team of people working at the PR agency.  I figured that what we hadn’t done by 4pm on a Friday wasn’t going to get done, so we had better knock off.  Our Friday afternoon soirees became the stuff of legend with suppliers, customers, family and staff all getting together for a glass of wine and something delicious to welcome in the weekend gently.  I look back on those days with much fondness.

Even now, when I spend most of my working life sitting in my office typing out drivel such as this, alone, save from the occasional company of my dog and a twice-daily visit from Mrs Jordan with a mug of tea, I still feel the same.  Friday is still special.  When I finish today, that last sigh of my computer, as it closes down, sounds a little different from every other day.  It says, just a little more clearly, well done, now take a break. And I will.  Instead of knocking together some fridge-bottom pasta or a hurried beef stroganoff made with whatever I can find in the freezer for tea, we might risk a takeaway tonight.  If I have had a good week, I might take my bride out for dinner at the bistro on the corner and perhaps a pint with the locals in the pub after. I might even risk a nip or two of that rather special single malt I have been saving. I just wouldn’t do that any other day of the week.  Daft isn’t it.

Then I get to thinking.  I am not quite in my dotage just yet.  But, to be realistic, there will come a time when not dragging myself the 25 yards to my back-garden office every day will seem attractive.  Retirement, as such, I have yet to embrace but there are a few other things I would like to do, other than work, before my body finally waves the white flag.  But what then?  What then for Friday?

When I can do what I like any day.  When 9-5 is no different from any other 8-hour period. When there is no stress other than whether the greenfly on the roses needs sorting again, or whether that car should be parked outside my house – what then?  When nobody reads my ramblings, asks my opinion or requests my help. When I no longer contribute.  Will I miss it?

Truth is, I have no idea.  When my last child left home people asked how I felt about it, but I couldn’t say.  After 40 years with in my home I had no idea what life would be like without them.  Heaven or hell. After 53 years at work, I feel the same about retirement.  That’s why I’m not doing it yet.

But when it comes, by choice or not, I am sure I will really miss that Friday feeling.  Have a nice weekend. 

Photo: Steve Jordan.