Seeing the Lite at the End of the Workweek

Have you noticed?

Even though the calendar says that today is a workday, you’re practically sailing on the Santa Ana Freeway. When you get to work you find a parking space pronto. The elevator isn’t packed, and the one guy in there with you wears jeans and carries a bag of breakfast burritos for the staff.

At your desk, there aren’t screensful of e-mail messages to answer, an avalanche of faxes to read or a flood of phone calls to return. And as you head out for lunch, it seems as if an unofficial holiday has been declared.

For many, it has. Friday Lite. That end-of-the-week day that seems less stressful--and much more relaxed--than the four days before it.

Friday has become the in-between day--the one that gets you from Monday through Thursday to Saturday and Sunday.

“Friday has become a swing day, and that, of course, means a lighter workday for many people,” says Mike Bernacchi, a business professor at the University of Detroit Mercy and editor of Under the Mike-roscope, a marketing and workplace trends newsletter.

“It’s a kinder, gentler Friday nowadays, a trend we’ve been noticing the last five years,” says Bernacchi, whose university recently stopped offering Friday afternoon classes because attendance was so poor.

For many--even though you’re on the clock today--Friday Lite might mean being away from your desk more often, taking a longer lunch break--maybe even taking to the outdoors. Hey, since you’re outside, why not get in a little shopping or run a quick errand so you can play more on the weekend? Besides, the boss has either taken the day off or is working from home or at a satellite office.

After all, no one seems to be around when you make calls--people have taken part or all of the day off. Many vacations begin on Fridays, and Friday is the weekday most often taken off. And if there’s a bona fide holiday on Monday, it’s likely that Friday will be a ghost town in your office.

In Southern California, Friday Lite has some strong indicators:

* Friday morning commutes--like Mondays--are the lightest days of the week, says Nick Jones, a Caltrans associate transportation engineer who keeps the figures. “More people have Friday off than any other day of the week. On Monday, people call in sick.”

* Ridership on Metrolink, the six -county commuter train system that feeds into downtown L.A., drops 13% to 14% Fridays on the Orange County route, the system’s second busiest, according to spokesman Peter Hidalgo. Regionwide, the system ridership drops a bit less--10% to 12%, he said. When Metrolink does “seat drops” of fliers informing passengers about construction or temporary changes in schedules, “We never put them out on Fridays,” he says.

* Thirteen percent of Southern California Rideshare clients in Orange, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties say they work a compressed schedule, taking every Friday or every other Friday off, says spokeswoman Jill Smolinski.

* Friday ridership on L.A. County’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority buses and the subway also is the lightest day of the week, reports Ed Scannell, MTA spokesman. (There is no such drop in bus ridership in Orange County, said John Standiford of the Orange County Transportation Authority.)

* Several Southland cities shut down on Fridays. City halls go dark every Friday in Orange, Seal Beach, Stanton, Rosemead, Carson, Azusa, Irwindale and more, and on alternate Fridays in cities including Buena Park, Fullerton, Irvine, Glendale, Pasadena, Temple City and Pico Rivera. Even the Orange County registrar of voters office is closed for business two Fridays a month.

Ben Enis, a USC marketing professor, says burgeoning technology is a key factor. Many employees--especially those plugged into cyberspace--have gained more freedom to work when, where and how they want. High technology--in the office and away--”has made us faster, more efficient employees, getting five or six days of work done in four.”

These days, Enis says, bosses also are savvy enough to know that “it’s anti-productive to ‘MBWA’--or manage by walking around. I think bosses know they don’t have to micro-manage anymore. They’re taking Fridays lighter too.”

“Why not recharge our batteries on Friday by carrying a lighter load?” asks Roy Adler, a Pepperdine University marketing professor who sees a psychological benefit in slacking off, especially after keeping up a workaholic pace earlier in the week.

“I think most employees are pretty responsible. If you’re behind in your work, you are not going to blow off Friday. But if you have had a good week and did a lot, you deserve Friday to recharge, to get out of the office, go to the beach, the park, the marina,” he says. “It’s your contribution at work that counts, not simply your presence.”

Jim Clark, president of Fluor Daniel Technologies in Irvine, gives employees alternate Fridays off and says Fridays are more festive than other days for those who are at work. When he entered the elevator on a recent Friday, two young women in casual outfits were carrying casseroles. On that same Friday, after putting in a couple of hours at his desk, Clark was off to Las Vegas for the weekend.

Debbie Rubio, an account executive at the Robbins Group, a public relations and event management company, gets a jump-start on her weekends on most Fridays because Monday through Thursday are often 10-hour workdays--and some weeks include weekend duty.

“I am so psyched,” she says about Friday, adding that she even skips working out at the gym that day because “any kind of work stops and partying begins. The next two days are not only mine, so is Friday.”

Or at least a big chunk of it.

Like clockwork, most every Friday she’s out the office door by noon for a hair and nail appointment. About 5 p.m., she’s on a bar stool at Houston’s in Century City, nursing a margarita while she waits for a friend. Then the two dine and take in a movie.

“It’s my Friday Lite routine. My ritual that I do for myself. I’m recharging because on Monday it’s back to the rat race.”

Also contributing to this report was Times staff writer Nancy Wride in Orange County.