By now, we’re in the third day of the Fourth of July weekend.
Or the first day of the weekend after the Fourth of July.
All depends on whether you got yesterday off too.
And that’s one of the tough things about the Fourth of July. It bounces around, landing on a different day every year, carving up the week in such a way that which days we all get off of work vary. So, as The Internet™, we have to rank the options. I’ll take this one.
7. Sunday
I need to start by saying that these rankings consider the possibility of people not getting any day off work if the Fourth falls on a Saturday or Sunday. This wasn’t how my employer handled it (back in the days when I was employed), but I’m sure it happens somewhere, and if it’s happening to one of us, we must all punish the circumstance in our rankings.
6. Saturday
If the Fourth has to fall such that one of our people doesn’t get a day off, though, it should fall on a Saturday. This way, we all can recover on Sunday instead of having to go right into what can become the longest work week of the year.
5. Tuesday
The Fourth on a Tuesday is kind of awkward and unwieldy. A lot of employers make their employees take Monday off if they want the four-day weekend, and the three-day week following the holiday is long enough for there to be expectations of everyone getting things done.
4. Monday
The Fourth on a Monday does get everyone a three-day weekend, but again, it results in a productive work week starting with a hangover. With Memorial Day and Labor Day, we love this, but those are also holidays that are easier to celebrate in good conscience on the day before. With the Fourth, we feel a responsibility to celebrate it on the Fourth. And we already get a few of these days a year, making it feel less special.
3. Wednesday
I know this might be a hot take. A lot of people don’t like the Fourth of July on a Wednesday. But plopping it in the middle of the week has the highest upside, because in effect, it results in a lot of people basically getting the whole week off. No one expects anyone to get things done in a two-day work week, and two two-day work weeks are a battle our overseers aren’t prepared to fight.
2. Thursday
Yes, this year’s is a great setup. In the best-case scenario, you get a four-day weekend with the best day of it batting leadoff. In the worst-case scenario, you have to work on Friday while hungover, but no one expects you to get anything done on even a normal Friday, let alone the Friday of a one-day work week. Yes, we’ve been living it good this year.
1. Friday
But the simplest, and best, day upon which the Fourth of July can fall is Friday. We won’t get to enjoy this until 2025, when as a society we’ve managed to elect the Chick-fil-A Chicken Sandwich to be our President, but when we do celebrate it, we’ll all get a great day off work.
And that—missing work conveniently—is, of course, what the Fourth of July is all about.
