This whole week my calendar awareness has been off. I don’t know if I’m distracted or just out of sync, but the one thing I’m usually on top of is my calendar and since Tuesday I’ve “almost missed” three meetings and did, in fact, completely miss a meeting this morning. Of course, it was an 8am meeting so I looked even more lazy an irresponsible. If you miss a 12pm meeting, the assumption you’re afforded is that “something came up,” even if that something is watching an episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race during lunch and losing track of time. But if you blow through an 8am meeting, your ass is just too lazy to get out of bed.
Even worse, this meeting wasn’t for work at the place I’m employed. So now I also don’t care. (I don’t assume this is their thinking…it’s my perception of their thinking which might be harsh). But, I have to go back before the meeting happened to ask a simpler question:
Why the eff are we meeting at 8am to do work that I don’t get paid to do?
That’s my ponderance for today, Thursday, and it feels distinctly like a Thursday Question: it makes a whole lot of sense born out of the weariness brought on by three busy weekdays but with all of the resignation that we’ve still got a couple weekdays to go before it’s Saturday. It lacks any of the bullshittery of early week days with none of devil-may-care attitude of a Friday Question, of which we only know there is only one: What time does Happy Hour really start. Thursday questions might be the real game changers. When we say “question everything,” we might also want to say we should do this on Thursdays, when those existential, root-of-the-problem questions seem so much easier to ask.
Since today is Thursday, I figured I’d lean in and discover some other pressing Thursday Questions that have been on my mind for awhile.
Who instituted the “dibs” parking expectation in Chicago and why are we all slaves to it? Take back the streets, I say.
Stores with self-checkout lanes as far as the eye can see: do you think we don’t know that we’re now doing your work and paying you more for it? C’mon. Let’s be honest here.
Who, exactly, are the people who keep saying that a return to the office is necessary “for productivity”? Stop spinning this. Just admit that you like control over your people? If people don’t want to come back, there’s a reason.
Why is the “windshield wiper fluid” icon on the dashboard given the same or more prominence than the “low fuel” light? There’s a huge difference in priority of necessity, no?
Can I realistically wear pants with an elastic waistband for the rest of my life? I actually need an answer to this one.
Those are just off the top of my head. Now that I see it, I’m going to dedicate Thursdays to asking the questions that matter…Thursday Questions.
It’s a thing.
My Tent on the Beach 