| HN Mirror

Ever go into work on Friday and "the system is down"? You can't get anything done, because the tools you use to do your job aren't working, and the fix is out of your hands. Your coworkers are all affected, too. First people are frustrated, because they have tasks deadlines, and those tasks won't get done and the deadlines won't be met. A few are really freaked out and start calling bosses and getting VPs to yell at other VPs. But soon, most people in the company realize that everybody else is in the same boat, and nobody will be meeting their OKRs this week, and the status reports probably won't be filed.

Then they relax.

If they're in offices, they group up, maybe in the break room. A rousing game of ping-pong breaks out.

Remote coworkers ping each other on Slack. Maybe a few start a round of Among Us. Bread dough is kneaded. Kids get a little more help with their schoolwork.

Everybody takes a very long lunch.

By 2pm, people realize the entire day is gone. Almost everybody has left or signed off by 3. Some roll out to bars; others go home to their kids, or to their gardens or garages or battlestations. Everybody beats the traffic.

Come Monday, the system is fixed. People are a little stressed out, since there's so much catching-up to do, status reports to be filed, widgets to be tracked and poked. But everybody agrees that was an amazing couple of days, and they got lots of rest, and it sure was nice. And hey, I had this great idea over the weekend—