Work’s Out!
If you’re friends with, or married to, a teacher, or you have attended school, you know the rhythm of the school year. At the end, everything speeds up. Kids cram for finals, freaking out about their senior project, or end-of-year concerts and plays, with an undercurrent of social stress. Parents push for good grades, but also look forward to an end to the daily grind of lunches, driving, stress. When the last paper is turned in, the last exam completed, the final cupcake chomped — it all suddenly stops. School’s out!
Remember that feeling? Pretty awesome.
I’m married to a teacher so I experience the end annually. At arm’s length, but still, it’s a wild time. And this surreal school year, with both of us working from home, got me thinking: Why isn’t work out, just like school? Why isn’t there a last day of work? On that day, work is just… done. Everyone — staff, suppliers, clients — knows that on June 10, let’s say, that’s it. The work year ends.
In a “work’s out” world, we’d finish up all our projects and turn them in. Presenting the fall ad campaigns, sending reports to shareholders, launching a new website, printing the holiday catalog. The end of the work year is a hectic time! Everything must be done and turned in before the last day. Just think how good it will feel to walk out and throw your notebooks in the trash. And then, two solid months of nothing.
What would you do with your summer? I hate to say it, but I think employers would still want something to happen — the market is not going to tolerate 2 months of actual downtime, right? So maybe we could take a few weeks on planning and internal improvements. Wallowing in endless process meetings, metrics reporting, lunch n learns, and pricing analysis. With no client contact (their work is out, too!), it might actually be productive. And after that, I’d suggest a mandatory European-style socialist vacation/holiday. A communal, annual punctuation mark.
The “last day of work” is also the perfect time to give report cards to clients. I come from #agencylife, so it might look like this —
Client: Brand X
Setting clear goals for the agency: A-
Collaboration with creative team: F
Responding to questions by e-mail: C
Allocating resources for success: C
Approving materials in a timely fashion: B
What if a client doesn’t “pass?” Just like kids, there are standards, and they need to absorb the material. Slower clients may need to stay back a year, and do the work over again. They may have to go to summer work. Hang in there, client. We still love you. At least you’ll be taller than the new clients next year.
Many clients will successfully move up and graduate. Many will even make us proud. We’ll miss the sweeties, but thank God the bullies will be gone. A few will do some jail time. It’s the shareholders’ fault the client turned into a monster. Not ours.
How to Implement the Last Day of Work for Your Business:
- Select the ideal end date for your business.
- Communicate the plan to your staff via Slack and clients via Twitter.
- Plan a variety of year-end presentations, recitals, VP-Client conferences, greatest hits videos, and year-in-review meetings.
- On the last day, instead of doing actual work, stage a day of fun. Sign each other’s annual reports, play games, clean out your desk, eat cupcakes.
The most important outcome is we all get a clean reset. We get an opportunity to re-invent our “work self.” We get meaningful development and tangible progress; a celebratory step-up, a notch in the belt — as a group. A shared experience, and maybe even a little ceremony to say that, yes, we all made it. We had some good times. And we’ll re-unite in the fall, for the next level of work. So go get a new Trapper Keeper, a new timesheet app, & some cool sneakers. The first day will be here before you know it.
