Counting down the days

Planning Calendar on My Wall, originally uploaded by Chris Campbell.

How's your working week? Your Monday to Friday, 9 to 5 routine? Can you last it out until your next couple of days off? There's a drivetime presenter on a local radio station near me who regularly counts down the days until the weekend.

At twenty past four today he said: "You're nearly through Monday, well done, only four more days 'til the weekend." Well, thanks.

I've heard him do similar links before, at various times in the week, and less than an hour later he again congratulated me for making it through Monday. Of course he's trying to connect with the listener, but isn't this a bit misguided and maybe even old-hat? What about people who enjoy their work, have a laugh with colleagues and escape from their families for a while?

To suggest that we all dislike work, and will feel solidarity with a man paid to talk a bit in between the records, seems to me to be underestimating your listener a bit.

And then what about shift workers getting ready to leave for night duty or who work over the weekend? Continuously counting down to the traditional weekend doesn't seem to fit in with the way that more and more of us are working outside of the nine to five.

And if you do work a vanilla five day week, do you really need reminding on a Monday afternoon that your week has only just begun?