Do You Dread Mondays?

I remember the feeling all too well. Sunday around 6 pm or so the dread would start creeping in -- only a few hours left before I went to bed and another work week started the next morning. It was a feeling of impending doom, that I'd be forced into five days (at least) of battles, pressures, fights, political maneuvers, and so on working at a place I didn't like in a job I disliked with people who didn't care. Ugh.

Ok, so maybe that's the appropriate description for the worst job I ever had, but I dreaded Mondays for many, many years of my career. Only a couple of jobs in my career have afforded me the luxury of enjoying Sunday nights (and Monday mornings as well). Thankfully, one of them is the job I currently hold.

Do you know the feeling -- hating Mondays because you're in a job/company that you dislike? Or are you as happy as a lark, enjoying what you do for a living?

I thought this would be an interesting question for an early Monday-morning after a holiday weekend post. :-)

Comments

[rdub98]

Your first paragraph describes my situation to a tee.

[David C]

I love my job, but I hate Mondays. Monday seems to be the optimum day for downsizing at my firm. Of the five cuts since November, four have been on a Monday. The fifth was delayed a day or so due to a three day holiday weekend. Not a big fan of Mondays at this point. If you're still around after 10:00 AM on Monday morning, you're normally good for another week. You just have to keep your head down, stay positive and keep on plugging along. Every payday my emergency fund gets a little bigger and I sleep a little better.

[Andy]

Unfortunately, I begin to dread Monday by noon on Sunday at the latest. When you do not believe in the people you work for because of their absolutely horrendous people and management skills, it is hard to get excited about anything. I am working on finding a new job with a different career path to hopefully end this misery. Thankfully I have a fiancée that is my biggest supporter and understands the situation. She has even told me before to just quit and we will figure it out, but I refuse to let this job beat me (i.e. quitting), especially in a bad economy. The best part is my contract runs out in 18 months, so at worst, that is as longest period of time that I will to endure. At this point I do not even care if I am happy in my next job, I just want to wake up some day and not dread going to it.

[Joachim]

It's a struggle but the money is good; hard for me to ignore the 200k. I just wish my greencard would come through so I could take some time off.

[Wise Money Matters]

I love my job so Monday's aren't too bad. The only thing I hate about Mondays is that I have to wake up at 4am for my job. I'm not a morning person. So Monday mornings do suck. Mondays are fine, but the morning is not so much.

[Meg]

I dread Mondays around 3 p.m. on Sunday. I've also had insomnia on Sunday nights for many years. Even though I don't like my career and never have despite making as many adjustments as I can to force my square peg self into a round hole, I'm not sure what else to do. It's hard walking away from a 6-figure salary, especially in this economy.

[rwh]

Monday's are fine. But long ago I had jobs where I dreaded them. I think it's a pretty good barometer for what you a person wants to do for a living. If you dread going to work, it's time to find another job.

[Sarah]

Some people can't switch jobs nor get a promotion etc. Joachim, for example, is restricted in what he can do due to artificial paperwork restrictions. Such restrictions hurt us all.

[KmanDew]

I have always dreaded Mondays. Sundays I would start to feel melancholy around 300pm. I never plan to much on Sunday evenings because of the dread of Monday. I don't know why, but I guess I have never really felt like I have been doing what I was intended to do with my life. I guess everyone wants to feel like you matter at what you do. But, the money keeps me coming back. You know how some people say they should have been born in a different period in history? I think I should have been born during the "hunter-gatherer" period in human history. I think that is the last time everyone had a job that truly mattered.

[Mark]

@Sarah, @Joachim:
I hear you on that one... I really like my job but can't get a promotion or even change employers due to GC restrictions... even though the education and experience is there... :-(

[Old Limey]

I love Mondays! That's the day I drive to our local Adult Education Center where at 8am a motorcoach arrives to take our "Hike for Health" class of about 50 seniors to one of the scores of beautiful state and county parks in Northern California where we split up into compatible groups to enjoy a wonderful and healthy hike. The group of about eight that I am in usually do about 12 miles with a couple of thousand feet of elevation gain. We alternate between hiking in giant redwood groves, along the Bay Area Ridge Trail, in the Santa Cruz Mountains, Big Sur, Monterey, the Marin Headlands and many other places.

Before I retired in 1992 I worked for Lockheed/Martin for 32 years as a staff engineer in the Structures department developing analysis software and leading a small R&D program. I loved my work and the people that I worked with; all the way up the ladder people were friendly, and although I enjoyed my weekends doing family things such as backpacking in the Sierras, skiing at Lake Tahoe, entertaining friends, and working around the home I used to look forward to Mondays and resuming work that I found very creative. It was fulfilling to work in a group of very talented people that I learned a lot from. One other contributor to happiness is a good marriage, in a week's time mine will have lasted 53 years.

I guess from what I am reading from others that times have changed - and not for the better.

[Ron]

I could not agree more, I hate Mondays. I am in the classic 'don't have any options, gotta take that crap' trap....my wife does not work, have a 401K loan, and desperately need insurance for the wife and son. There are many many reasons that I should be happy for the stable job that I have, but they are very hard to remember on a Sunday afternoon. BTW, if you have a 6 figure income....shut up!!

[guinness416]

Joachim - I remember those days; I ended up moving to Canada! Hang in there.

[JEM]

Its not that I hate my job, I really like it. I am not passionate about it though. The things I am passionate about do not pay. (My family, friends, church, missions, ect.) So, I have to work but I always feel like I am wasting time instead of focusing 50 hours a week on things that matter more and mean much more to me. Therefore, I do dread Mondays.

[Sarah]

I have a job I really like, but I still dread Mondays. It's just the idea of getting up early, not having free time to do whatever, etc that gets me down. The tasks of my job seem really unpleasant Sunday evening, and I'm usually pretty moody Monday mornings. Fortunately, that usually goes away by 10am, once I get into doing my job and being productive. I think for me I'm just the kind of person who always gets a case of "the Mondays".

[Sarah]

Oddly enough, now that I have a job I like more with much gentler hours, I dread Mondays in a way I didn't at my other job. At my old job, I worked around the clock, all week--all Monday meant was that I had to wear a suit rather than jeans to work, I could only take a cab home, not into work, and that I could only expense dinner, not all three meals of the day. Oh, and I got a little less done because it was noisier in the office.

[Shane]

FMF - what is your occupation? I'm totally jealous that you love your job and have lots of time throughout the day to make several posts on this wonderful blog. Are you self-employed?

[FMF]

Shane --

No, not self-employed. Stay tuned to the series I'm writing on "my jobs" and you'll eventually see what type of work I'm doing. :-)

[AD]

Hate Mondays. It's like I want to fast forward to Friday afternoon, which depresses me to think about fast forwarding through days of my life.

I'm working on my escape plan, and hope to be out of here in a year (or sooner).

[RickD]

Mondays are a mikex bag for me. I work in the IT consulting field so Monday typically means an early morning plane ride out to the client site. I despise the travel, but genuinely love my work. So the answer to the question is a decided yes/no.

[Corporate Barbarian]

I'm usually pretty productive on Monday mornings, as I just start knocking things off the to-do list. I'm not a morning person to begin with, so whether it's Monday or Thursday doesn't make much of a difference. My period of dread begins on Sunday night, so I get the misery out of the way before Monday morning.