Why the worst day of the week is the best day to work from home

I like to think of my friends as broadly intelligent, well-read and insightful people. They are the kind of group that, when thrown together, is drawn to discussing big ideas in a robust forum. For the most part, this is true, and yet, just last week, we spent two solid hours debating the worst day of the week.

“It’s obviously Monday,” declared my friend Matt, citing Bob Geldof and Garfield as proof that the start of the week is universally unpopular. “No, I hate Wednesday,” countered my wife, Kate, explaining that she didn’t like the term “hump day”, which meant she was against Wednesdays altogether.

Monday is madness, Friday is a waste. If you’re going to spend one day working remotely, then you must choose Tuesday.Credit: Dionne Gain

Unfortunately, they were both wrong because the worst day of the week is famously Tuesday.

A day when time seems to stand still, Tuesday brings nothing to the table, no positive vibes, no pithy nickname.

On Tuesday, the novelty of a new week has worn off, but the salvation of the weekend is still an age away. No one writes songs about Tuesday, and if they do, they’re usually depressing – Tuesday’s Dead by Cat Stevens, Tuesday Heartbreak by Stevie Wonder.

Tuesday, I explained to my friends, was only good for one thing: “It’s the best day to work from home.”

Nothing gets a crowd of primarily corporate professionals revved up like a hot take on working from home – a lesson Opposition Leader Peter Dutton learnt the hard way this week.

In case you missed it, on Monday, Dutton backflipped on a plan to force public servants back into the office after realising it was deeply unpopular.

“We’ve made a mistake in relation to the policy, and we apologise for that,” Dutton said on Nine’s Today show. “And I think it’s important that we say that and recognise it.”

On the surface, it might seem ludicrous that, with everything going on right now – the cost-of-living crisis, housing affordability, Trump’s global trade war – working from home remains such a critical campaign issue, but it speaks to how much emotion we have invested in the topic.

Peter Dutton on Monday sought to recover from his major policy about-face on working-from-home arrangements.Credit: James Brickwood

Emotions were running similarly high following my declaration as each of my friends rushed to vouch for their WFH day of choice. The Monday crowd were first to put their case forward, arguing that working from home on Monday had a double upside: Sundays were less scary, and it meant a gentle start to the working week.

Accurate as that might be, assuming you only do one day a week from home, it seems insane to use it up at the start of the week. Everyone knows the most significant benefit of WFH is to break up the week, a mini-departure from routine, commuting, and people you don’t like in the office. Why burn that on a Monday and then stare down the barrel of four uninterrupted days in a row?

“That’s exactly our point!” cried the Wednesday converts. “Hump day at home, what’s not to love?” They may be onto something, given that a 2023 University of Sydney study found that Wednesday was the most popular day to work from home, with 61 per cent of people choosing it as their preferred flexible home day.

Personally, I find returning to the office on Wednesday re-energising. With Monday and Tuesday in the rearview, you’re nearly at the finish line. If Wednesday is hump day, then you’re basically at Thursday, and everyone knows Thursday is the new Friday, and Friday barely counts anyway. So, all things considered, Wednesday is the beginning of the end of the week.

Everyone knows the most significant benefit of WFH is to break up the week, a mini-departure from routine.Credit: Getty Images

On that note, the same study found Thursdays and Fridays were the least popular days to work from home, which makes perfect sense because they’re objectively the best days to be in the office.

Working from home on Thursday is total madness because you’re robbing yourself of the three most magical words in corporate culture: “after-work drinks”.

Admittedly, only one of my friends, Paul, advocated spending Fridays at home. “It’s like a three-day weekend,” he said, adding, “Please don’t use that in your column.”

Sadly for soon-to-be-fired Paul, the data disagrees with him. According to a UK study that surveyed more than 2000 office workers, nearly a third of workers feel happiest working from the office on a Friday, and that’s because Friday has significant “last week of school” energy.

With the weekend in touching distance, Fridays are an infectious celebration of shared joy. Everyone is relaxed, people are in mufti, you talk to co-workers you’ve never spoken to before, and occasionally, there are lollies.

Ultimately, whatever day you choose, it’s clear that working from home remains a divisive yet cherished element of the modern workplace. And to borrow a quote from Peter Dutton: “I think it’s important that we say that and recognise it.”

Find more of the author’s work here. Email him at [e-mail] or follow him on Instagram at @thomasalexandermitchell and on Twitter @_thmitchell.