Weekend work is simply awful. There is no better way to describe it. Whether the notice is a month in advance, or the Friday before, it always hurts. Over the past 3 months, I’ve had to work a few weekend shifts and I’m still trying to figure out how to avoid it.

Some offices require a “body” to be present, to field any fire drills that may occur. I believe this is where I fit in, despite the lack of these so called fires. Although weekend work is generally stress-free, you still lose one valuable weekend day. Not to mention, Mother Nature somehow gets hold of the memo and makes you pay with clear-blue skies.

To figure out how to escape weekend work, it is best to review how the actual request transpires. It of course starts with the boss walking over to your desk. At this time they will lay it on you, with two different possibilities: the statement or the question.

The statement eliminates most possibilities of avoidance. It was made famous by Bill Lumbergh in “Office Space” and goes a little something like this:

Yeaahh…. I’m gonna need you to come in tomorrow. If you could just go ahead and be here at about 8am… that’d be great… mkay?

Boom. You just scored yourself weekend work. Any sort of rebuttal will only hurt your year-end review. If you’re told to show up, just accept it and show up.

Now, if the request is in the form of a question, your chance of work decreases. The question is very clear: “Reply All, can you work this weekend?” This presents yourself with an opportunity to immediately respond and avoid the weekend work.

The list below provides a strategy for your response, along with a few other ideas that can help save your weekend. Some options are riskier than others so it is always important to weigh the pros and cons.

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   1

   Always have Plans

   That’s right, you must always have weekend plans. Ingrain this concept in your mind. When your boss walks by and asks if you can work this weekend, you can quickly provide an out. I personally use visiting parents. It’s easy to remember and hard to argue. You might lose a bit of street cred around the office, but at least you’ll escape the cubicle on Saturday/Sunday.

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   2

   Ask Around

   If you get tagged with weekend work, it is important to ask around if anyone else will be in the office. I find that every time I have weekend work, there is someone else in the office. If I would have been privy to this information, I could have discussed this ahead of time with my boss, and not have been required to show up. Most offices have no need for multiple weekend workers. Now let’s say you are the person who decides to come in on a Saturday to catch up; please do us all a favor and let any of your fellow co-workers know that they can sleep in.

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   3

   Work from Home

   If you are the only person who needs to be at the office, you can always try and log-in from home. Companies that have web access to email make this entirely possible. At the end of the day, who’s really checking that you were there? A few emails here, a few emails there, and any person would believe you had a productive day. Just be careful, if your boss asks for an attachment stored locally on your work computer, you may be heading to work like a bat-out-of-hell.

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   4

   Time your E-mails

   Although I’m not a major fan of my company’s e-mail client, Groupwise, it does have a key feature that can potentially save you from weekend work. Post dating emails. That’s right, check your email options. It’s a nice trick that will allows an e-mail to be sent and received on a specified date (in our case — the weekend). I’ve tried this once or twice to see how it works, and I must say, be careful. If someone actually takes the time to respond over the weekend, and you don’t have mobile e-mail, you could end up doing more damage than good.

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   5

   Roll the Dice

   The office isn’t high school. Drama-wise, maybe, but not in regard to attendance. If you take the chance, and skip out on the weekend work, who is really checking? There are very few people who come in Monday wondering about the attendance over the weekend. Now, I can’t speak for all offices, but most people don’t seem to care. It’s a coin flip, but sometimes weekend plans are just too good to cancel.  Just know this is not a recommended option to climb the corporate ladder and make it rich, but neither is gambling.

And there you have it. Weekend work is surely something to whine about but the list above may allow you to avoid it all together. Good luck out there, and remember – always have weekend plans!

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