What are you doing at 11:45 a.m. on a Tuesday?
For British workers, it is the most stressful time of the workweek, according to a survey published in an article in England’s leading newspaper, The Telegraph.
I feel that their findings are odd; Monday has the reputation of being the worst day of the week, as it effectively ends our precious weekend and forces us to look the workweek dead in the face.
But this apparently is not the case.
The survey showed that most people use Mondays as a free day to recover from the weekend and take a lazy day at the office.
According to the survey, 11:45 a.m. on Tuesday is the most stressful time of day for workers because we then realize all the work that must be done throughout the week. Because Monday was wasted away, we all of a sudden feel the stress of the work that is ahead.
I’m sure this survey holds some truth; however, I would like to offer up a few other stressful times throughout a week in the life of a college student:
• 8:45 a.m. — You roll over, stare at a blurry alarm clock and realize your 9 a.m. class is going to start without you, again. This throws students into a stressful panic mode as they spring out of bed and in to the day.
• Two hours before a quiz, test or presentation you have known about for two weeks. Three hours ago, you still had hope of accomplishing some form of preparation. But lunch with your friends sounded too good to miss. Now there is very little hope.
• 2 a.m. — After cramming in so much information for the next day’s class, you realize you wanted to be fast asleep an hour ago.
• 4 a.m. — You realize you’re probably not going to get more than a moment or two of shut-eye.
• 5:30 a.m. — Not only do you realize that you just pulled an all-nighter and you’re completely screwed, but the only way you’re going to make it through the day is with constant access to caffeine.
While the average workweek for a college student is stressful enough, the weekend also isn’t nice enough to come and go without some form of stress.
• 10 p.m. on Friday — Just got off work. Time to decide whether to be good and go home to accomplish a few things and get some sleep, or go out and relax from the weeklong workload.
Naturally, you picked going out like most sane college students, which leads to the following stressful moments.
• 2 a.m. on Saturday — The bar is closing. Bummer. Time to find your friends, your friends’ friends, pay your bar tab, find a cab ride home and finally ditch the guy who has been trying to dance with you all night.
• 11 a.m. Sunday — Look at the clock and realize that yet another weekend has come and gone far too quickly. Nothing productive you had planned got accomplished. Typical.
After all this, 11:45 a.m. on Tuesday seems like a piece of cake. Aren’t most people going to lunch then, anyway?
Reach Heather at hcutler@asu.edu.
