New York editors invented half-day summer Fridays. Silicon Valley killed them.
We’ll never have it as good as publishing types in the 1960s
Iam not at all bitter that people in media used to be able to afford summer houses. Or that they were totally unreachable once they were there. See? *forces smile*
But I suppose we can thank wealthy editors (huh, those people existed?) for something: They invented the coveted summer Friday.
Beginning in the 1960s, thousands of professionals working at publishing houses and creative agencies deserted the office early on the Fridays between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Some left around midday; others took alternating Fridays completely off. That way, they could beat the weekend traffic to the Hamptons. No, seriously.
Before you get all jealous (you will anyway), summer Fridays are a mostly New York City phenomenon. And it shouldn’t matter anyway, because, because, because…FLEX TIME! GIG ECONOMY! You’ve had the privilege of summer Fridays all along, according to the Silicon Valley overlords who invented the devices that keep us tethered to work email 24/7. See? No bitterness.
The precise origins of summer Fridays are a history mystery. Even a 1988 New York Times investigation, which spoke to hidebound inhabitants of the publishing industry, reached only vague conclusions. Summer hours had “been a custom for decades,” the learned grayhairs said. The season was a “time for rest and reflection.” Add to that the fact that editors often reviewed manuscripts from home anyway and you’ve got a recipe for summer slack-off. “By beating the crowd on Fridays, the theory goes, they can use time they have saved to read or edit.” Hmmm, I see you, editors.
But it’s not just for us and our beach houses, they argued. We’re here for you commoners, too. Publishing houses insisted that summer Fridays were indeed a fringe benefit that compensated for low entry-level salaries.
While summer Fridays appear to have originated at 1960s publishers — ‘’The whole thing started in the publishing business because a lot of people in publishing have summer houses,’’ according to Phyllis Westberg of Harold Ober Associates, because I’m driving this summer house point hard — many other top agencies were quick on the uptake. Ad shops like McCann Erickson (yes, like Mad Men), corporate overlords like Pfizer, and even more suburban companies like Pepsi conceded summer Fridays. According to a survey by the American Association of Advertising Agencies, 16 of New York’s 20 largest agencies let employees off early in 1981. “There’s something about a postprandial jitney ride that gets the creative juices flowing,” quipped a New York Times in 2010 article titled “If a Tree Falls at Work on Friday…”
Besides media and fashion folks, who were probably already in the Hamptons anyway, that left finance, the only other career that matters in New York City, according to anyone who’s ever lived there. Unfortunately, brokers couldn’t leave before the closing bell no matter what day of the week it was. They had to rely on casual Fridays to communicate their weekend plans, which in 1980s finance meant a pair of pastel argyle socks and a tennis racquet hanging in the closet. “Men will continue to look ‘distinctive’ until the moment they’re on the way out,’’ said one swell gal interviewed by the Times. “Then they’ll go to the men’s room and change into country clothes. They have it down to a 10-minute procedure.’’
Indeed, when summer Fridays seeped into the workplace, New Yorkers’ weekend plans became the latest status symbol. Whether they left midday or after 5, “everyone looks like they’re going to their country house or their yacht, whether any such place exists or not.”
Yeah, New York can be kind of snooty. But most companies didn’t deal out Fridays for free. The fine print meant employees had to make up for those hours elsewhere. And as technology made it easier to do so, the whole idea of summer hours kind of stopped making sense anyway.
If a worker took Friday off during summer, he or she was expected to tack on an extra 30 minutes to an hour Monday through Thursday. What a truckload of crap, you might be thinking. But for many people, leaving work early one day per week helped them get a jump start on their weekends. Forget beach traffic, people who take summer Fridays today use the afternoons to get chores done or take their kids to the pool. In 2016, about 18 percent of employers nationwide offered some version of summer hours. In more white collar cities, as many as one in four workers either closes the week early or takes advantage of a flexible work arrangement. (Every summer Friday in New York, power consumption dips dramatically.)
By now, we know it’s not media in the driver’s seat. After the rise of Amazon and recession downsizing, old media largely did away with summer Fridays. Time, Inc. held out until 2014, bless it. Conde Nast still honors them, “business needs permitting.” But if you work in digital media, forget it. Go cry about it over Buzzfeed’s happy hour keg.
Instead, as the economy recovered, employees encountered a new phenomenon: the rise of flex time, a philosophy honed in Silicon Valley which allows an office worker to set her own hours from any beach in the world (unless you work at Yahoo).
That’s like unlimited summer Fridays, right? No. According to a 2012 survey by Captivate Network, 69 percent of workers aged 21 to 34 forfeited summer Fridays because their workload was too heavy. Combine the anxiety workers still feel about unemployment with the modern inability to unplug and you’ve nailed the problem with “flex time.” It sounds like a great perk, but many aren’t using it to optimize a 40-hour workweek. Their 8-hour workday bleeds into 10; their Friday afternoon off means a full inbox on Saturday, when fellow employees are flexing.
“It used to be that you couldn’t always access files unless you were in the office,” HR expert Steve Boese told the New York Post in 2014. “But now that everyone has Skype, tablets, smartphones and even Dropbox, you can leave on Friday at 1 p.m. and still be available.”
Turns out, we can live without the summer house after all. Forget Fridays and flex time, even. Some of us merely want an empty inbox until Monday morning. That’s the hottest office perk of the summer.
