[This entry is cross posted at ordinary-times.com]

I was talking about the POETS Day, “Piss Off Early, Tomorrow’s Saturday,” ethos with somebody the other day and she brought up the French and their four-day thirty-five-hour work week as aspirational for the movement. I’m not certain the French four-day work week exists even in the tiny corners of their economy where I suspect it would make its home.

Between headlines about French youth rioting because they won’t get to retire at forty-whatever there are conflicting accounts of what constitutes a job over there. Forbes tells us “France famously has a legally mandated 35-hour work week, enshrined in law since 2000,” but in the Snippets of Paris article “France’s famous Myth: the 35-hour French Work Week” (parsing the capitalization decisions in that headline will keep me up for days) we’re asked “Think the French only work 35 hours a week? Perhaps the French are just not good at keeping track of their hours.”

Whether they do, whether they don’t is unimportant. My well-meaning friend misses the point of POETS Day. It’s not about accumulating time off. It’s about enjoying something illicit.