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Timeline of Your Summer Friday Working from an Air BnB

We’re smack dab in the middle of another manic summer filled with travel, high credit card bills and blowing off work for 20% of the week. Today we’ll be celebrating the time-honored tradition of renting out a house for the weekend, heading out on Thursday night, partying a little too late and waking up Friday having to survive until you sign off for the weekend.

Let’s get into it

9:06 am: Get Your Bearings

You wake up with a pounding headache, a mouth drier than a Canadian gingerale brand (that’s a poorly executed Canada Dry joke for ya) and as disoriented as you’ve been in your life. Where the hell are you right now? You’re not important or rich enough to have been kidnapped, but then again, the world is pretty crazy these days so you never know. You roll over and see your friend sleeping fully clothed in a twin bed next to you and you finally remember – you’re in an AirBnB for the weekend with your friends.

You glance at your phone, realize the time, and sit up with a start while you quietly panic inside. How could you forget to set an alarm? Why did you need to have that last beer at 1 am and smoke that bedtime joint that actually kept you awake for another 45 minutes? You have a whole weekend of partying ahead of you but once again, you got too excited and finished early (your ex-girlfriend would be happy to know that nothing’s changed.)

Scrambling out of bed, you open your computer and make sure you’re logged on to Slack, Teams, or whatever bullshit your company uses. Hopefully no one noticed that you’re signing on late, which wouldn’t really be a big deal if they did, but honestly confrontation is the last thing you can handle right now so you pray it flies under the radar.

Today you’re lucky and the shower you’re sharing with 5 other people is open, so you hop in for a quick rinse, throw on clothes and head down to the kitchen.

Chances are you’ll hit your head on the ceiling on the top bunk, but it’s worth it

9:30 am: Fix Your Hangover

You enter the kitchen, chug 2 glasses of water and hope to god that someone remembered to buy coffee for the weekend. To your surprise, some kind soul who isn’t working today (probably your friend who’s a teacher or works in a made-up job like marketing) has made breakfast for everyone. They probably won’t shut up about making breakfast for the entire weekend, but that’s the price you’ll have to pay.

You grab your bacon, scrambled eggs and English muffin, talk about last night and get a vibe check on everyone’s plans for the day. You offer to help with the dishes but stress that you have a call in 3 minutes, making it just enough of an insincere gesture that people will start to resent you already.

10 am: Your First Zoom

It’s time to find the perfect location for your first (and hopefully last) Zoom of the day. Yes, good WiFi is important but even more essential is your background and surroundings. Sure, your boss and co-workers might be aware that you’re working remote from a lake house this weekend, but they won’t fully realize the extent to which you’ll be slacking off today until they see your set up up close.

It’s like going to your friend’s house in high school. His parents know that you’re going to be drinking, but that doesn’t mean you get to do shots in their kitchen. You go to the basement to slug Mike’s Hard’s and Smirnoff before puking in their bushes like a normal person.

You want a location that’s quiet, private and doesn’t have too insane of a background.

Let’s do a quick breakdown of the best remote spots

Power Ranking Best Remote Work Spots

5. Living Room with People Obviously Drinking / Doing Drugs Next to You

4. In the Car / On The Train

3. By the Pool (way too obvious you’re on vacation and potential for dropping your laptop in the water/someone splashing the shit out of you)

2. Quiet Bedroom with signs that say like “Life’s a Beach and I’m Playing in the Sand” or “It’s Wine O’Clock Somewhere”

1. Quiet Bedroom with Normal Walls

When your coworkers ask where you are, don’t lie but underplay the situation as best as you can. “Oh me and a few friends did a little weekend trip to New Jersey.” We all know you and 12 other people are blacking out in the Manasquan for 3 days straight, but let’s not address it.

Don’t be this MFer

10:34 am: Do All Your Work For the Day

Your call ended late because Jim wouldn’t shut the fuck up about his kid’s travel baseball tournament this weekend. We get it dude, your son developed early and can throw a curveball. He’s probably going to hate you in 4 years anyways, quit because you pushed him too hard, and audition for the a capella group just to piss you off.

Anyways, now it’s time to actually do some work for the first time today. And when we say work, we mean the bare minimum to not get fired.

Make a to-do list of everything you need to do today. Do a quarter of the items on the list and promise yourself that you’ll do the rest Monday. You probably won’t because you’ll have a mental breakdown after this weekend, but that’s a future you problem.

11:45 am: Bring it Home

After a solid hour of working and checking Twitter, it’s time to wrap up work for the day and head downstairs to join the rest of the crew. Get a vibe check on who still has to work and who’s ready to start drinking. Eat a little lunch and even offer to do 1 very simple chore so it seems like you’re helping out.

Personally, I like to do ta big load of dishes the first day and humbly reject everyone’s offers to help. That usually sets you up for at least 24 hours of not helping out. Other good chores include taking out the trash, going to buy beer for the weekend, and doing a really bad job of cleaning so no one asks you to help again.

We all agree I shouldn’t be doing dishes anymore right? Cool i’ll just go grab a beer then

1 pm: Completely Erase the Concept of Work from Your Mind

It’s time to crack that first beer of the day and check out for the weekend. Even if you don’t have Summer Fridays, you’re just leaving your laptop open and periodically responding to IMs or emails that are urgent (these don’t exist.)

If you’re lucky, you have 1 friend that’s still working and you can listen in on their work calls. There’s no greater joy in life than hearing your friend talk in their corporate voice and make small talk with their coworkers. What pathetic, fake losers who behave the exact same way that you do. Hopefully, they get a clue and figure it out, but you’re not counting on it.

Once that 3rd beer sets in, it’s time to completely erase the concept of work from your mind and forget how to do your job until Monday. Enjoy.

Historical Photo of Hippos Kissing of the Week

Motion for humans to start kissing like this