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UAE is the first nation to formalise a workweek shorter than five days – for the public sector at least, and my lucky kids

It was a historic day today – the UAE’s first-ever working Friday as the nation switches to a Saturday-Sunday weekend, rather than Friday-Saturday.

The surprise announcement – that government bodies and schools would operate four-and-a-half days a week, closing at noon on Fridays – came out of the blue in December, and left lots of people scratching their heads.

Private businesses aren’t mandated to make the change, so if my company hadn’t followed suit, I’d have had different weekends to my kids! (who, needless to say, are thrilled with their super-early finish on Fridays at the end of their gruelling (haha) 4.5-day week.)

It took my company a few weeks to decide, but knowing that my bosses all have children, I was fairly confident we’d make the transition to align with Western calendars, even though we work with other Gulf states that are keeping their Friday-Saturday weekend. The half day on Friday, unfortunately, doesn’t apply to us being in the private sector (booo!).

So how does the new arrangement feel?

Right now, strange! I’d go so far as to say a little bewildering. Definitely confusing. Humans, it seems, are programmed to feel a sense of dislocation when a sudden change to routine is imposed on them. But I feel sure it’s going to be great – a whole extra day to catch up with family and friends at home, and proper Sunday roasts, yay!

Like many people, my week has consisted of changing days on calendars, shifting appointments and commitments forward by a day and wondering what’s going to happen to Friday brunch.

On several occasions, I had to think really hard about what day it actually was. Take Wednesday (the new hump day) for example. Really it was Tuesday. But with school online and my boss sending us home to work due to the UAE’s high Covid case numbers, it felt like Monday part 3.

In the grander scheme, the passing of time is neither here nor there in a world where 2022 appears to be shaping up as the third act of 2020.

It’s not the first time that the UAE has swapped the weekend around. The previous switch took place in 2006, via a story in the Gulf News, announcing that the weekend would move from Thursday/Friday to Friday/Saturday.

I am wondering, however, whether we should relocate to our neighbouring emirate of Sharjah. They’ve gone a step further and adopted a three-day weekend.

On 3 September 1967, traffic in Sweden switched from driving on the left to the right. This also happened in Dubai in the 60s. Can you *imagine* if it occurred today?!

Do you ever wake up on the first day of the weekend (Friday here in the UAE) and think, “How on earth am I going to keep the kids entertained for the next 14 hours?”

Pre-child pastimes such as lie-ins, long lunches and lazy afternoons a thing of the past, of course.

It’s honestly not that I’m a disinterested Mum – it’s because, when DH is gone at the weekend, the prospect of such a long stretch of unstructured time without breaks feels a little daunting – especially as our options are still limited due to the climate.

As my Scottish neighbour (who bravely stayed here all summer) put it the other day, “You can’t even go into the garden and dig a hole to pass the time.”

So when my human alarm clocks come bounding in on Friday mornings at 6.30am and prize my eyes open, I ask myself a few questions: Do I have a plan? Can I avoid taking the kids to the supermarket? And, if I lie really still and don’t talk, will they let me sleep some more?

The answer to all three this morning was no.

I’m happy to be a homebody (being cancerian, I guess) but this clearly isn’t compatible with two active boys who start climbing the walls by midday.

Long before that, I’m treated to a chorus that to mums everywhere is worse than the most irritating mobile ringtone.

“Mum-eeeee, MUM-EEEE, I’m bored,” whined BB shortly after I’d poured breakfast cereal into their bowls and all over the floor while still half asleep at 7.30am. “I said, I’m BORED.”

“Where are we going today?” (he knows full well I’ll have to think of something)

Mini Monsters on Sheik Zayed Road: And, yep, that is my oldest son about to point the shooter straight at me.

We could have gone swimming, of course, but today the energy needed for that on my part (BB swims like a fish, but LB can’t yet) was lacking due to a cold (yes, even in 40-degrees heat!). I’ve also been promising myself for ages that we’ll go to church – there’s a good expat church in a hotel near work apparently.

And the mall is always an option, though I go through phases of never wanting to see the inside of a mall again – not the shops, but the plastic playareas that are mainly populated by Filipino nannies rather than mums.

When the boys started moving furniture around and fighting over the of-no-interest-to-them-normally decorative cushions, it was time to evacuate the house and we ended up at Mini Monsters, which is actually rather growing on me as the kids love it and there’s wi-fi for mummy.

So it all worked out in the end. But if, on a Friday in future, you see a blonde with two boys in tow looking at you thinking, “She would be a nice Friday friend,” don’t assume I’m odd, because one of these weekends it could be you who’s in charge of the kids with no man and no plan.