For shopping, Black Friday no match for Cyber Monday
By Beth Teitell
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
I have to confess: Sometimes I’m not as productive at work as I should be. But you should have seen me yesterday, brushing off chatty co-workers, sending personal calls straight to voice mail, skipping lunch, staying glued to my computer.
Boy, was it nice to get all of my holiday shopping done.
“I haven’t been this focused in years,” I told my editor when she came nosing around, looking for my, ah, column. She seemed less than impressed, but hey, it wasn’t my fault. I had every intention of doing “work work” at the office after the long Thanksgiving weekend, until Sunday night, when I heard someone on the radio mention “Cyber Monday.”
“What’s that?” I wondered, a new holiday? I was heading out to buy some “Wishing you and yours a Happy Cyber Monday” cards and a festive Cyber Monday flag for my entryway, when I decided to check the Herald’s employee handbook just to make sure we got the day off.
We didn’t! I was disappointed - until a friend cued me in. “This is a holiday celebrated at work,” she explained, “where the fast Internet connections are, and where you’re more focused.” Yeah, forget this “home is where the heart is” bunk, it’s where the broadband is.
Cyber Monday, I’ve happily learned, marks the beginning of the Internet holiday shopping period and is fast becoming the biggest Internet shopping day of the year. That sounds great for the American economy, right?
Well, guess what? Some employers disallow shopping at work because they actually expect workers to work. Really. The slightly less grinchy let workers stay late to use computers or dedicate their lunch hours to shopping.
Hey, Scrooge: We all work from home these days, so don’t complain if we home from work.
And whether management likes it or not, I’ve got a feeling this trend has legs, or maybe it’s fingers. As one fashionista noted, “Black Friday is so last week.”
As she busily clicked through some sites, she suggested the holiday be a weekly celebration: “I find that Monday online browsing/shopping is a natural extension of the weekend, like building a little garage carport over the driveway. I’m here at work, and yet, my mental play clothes are still on, and I’m wandering the aisles of Bed, Bath & Beyond, checking out the stitch count of my mattress-pad-to-be, and then cyberdriving over to Pottery Barn to check out some plates. I usually ‘arrive at work’ by midafternoon.”
Some managers may not be too keen on the idea, so I’ve decided to “re-brand” Cyber Monday. Workers unite - for Mental Flex Time.
