Attention staff: Summer Fridays are here! From Friday, June 7, to Friday, August 30, staff have the option to leave at 1:00 p.m. for a 4.5-hour early dismissal. All staff are welcome to participate in Summer Fridays, though we know they may not be for everyone.

Here are some guidelines about how to participate:

  • You must have already worked forty-plus hours Monday-Thursday (forty regular hours plus keeping your green dot on a bit longer than everyone else)
  • You must create a comprehensive coverage plan that ensures all tasks are completed or handed off to another staff member. Plans should address all projects for Q2 through Q4 of next year, and staff coverage should be scheduled to the minute
  • You must connect with your manager to discuss how leaving work early may affect your five-year plan
  • You must have expressed written consent from the company’s CEO, CFO, COO, and each of their direct reports (their eldest children)
  • You must run your Summer Friday coverage by all clients, vendors, your clients’ vendors, your vendor’s clients, and your vendor’s client’s vendor’s clients
  • On the day of your Summer Friday, we will mark every email as urgent, and it’ll be up to you to decide whether it’s actually urgent and you need to stay to deal with it, or whether you will take your Summer Friday on principle
  • During your Summer Friday, we ask that you set your Slack notifications to extra loud
  • Timesheets will now be due right after you wake up
  • Schedule with your team to make sure at least two of you are taking a Summer Friday, but not more than three. To get your preferred Friday, we will utilize a “dibs” system and recommend you call dibs first. Exceptions will not be made under any circumstances, including your brother’s wedding or having tickets to Weezer at Red Rocks
  • LGBTQIA+ employees will not be granted an extra Summer Friday during Pride Month, but we do invite you to purchase this year’s company Pride T-shirt for twenty-five dollars
  • Two weeks prior to your Summer Friday, you must present a slide deck with exactly how you plan to have fun
  • Fun Plan slide decks must be presented at the weekly all-hands meeting. Plans deemed not fun enough will be asked to present again, and you may be required to attend an additional HR session titled “Having a Blast & You”
  • All staff will be required to wear 50 SPF or higher sunblock on their Summer Friday to ensure that the beginning of all meetings on Mondays isn’t wasted with “Somebody got some sun on Friday!”
  • Any new hobbies such as “bird watching” will not be permissible, as further vacation days will not be approved for such activities as “following the migration patterns of the yellow-breasted king snitcher.” Summer Fridays are for one-off activities only
  • Any adventures of epic proportions (i.e., stealing the Declaration of Independence) must get approval from legal to ensure they won’t conflict with our non-compete agreement
  • Please consider the weather ahead of your Summer Friday and plan your activity accordingly. You will not be permitted to switch to a sunnier day of the week. If it rains every Friday for the entire summer, we encourage you to do your part to combat climate change: think green and don’t print this email
  • Please also consider the additional unwritten guidelines made clear in other ways
  • All staff are required to relax on their Summer Fridays
  • Staff unable to participate in Summer Fridays are invited to close their eyes at their desk for five minutes and have the option to imagine either a beach or lake. For those not participating, it’s also your job to make weird comments to your coworkers on Monday about how you were sitting in front of your computer while they were not

Consider this our gift for all your hard work all year round. We’ll follow up soon with more information on our other summer fun program, Eye Bags Thursday.

Sincerely,
Senior Leadership Team