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Nobody loves Mondays except people who don’t have to work on Mondays. The first day of the week has always been a sneaky thief that robs you of the weekend afterglow and gives you only a long week to look forward to. Yip, Mondays suck.

If you suffer from the dreaded Monday blues you may find a bit of comfort in the fact that you are not alone. According to Fortune, a 2021 poll by YouGov showed that of the 4 000 people interviewed, almost 60% said they felt the blues on a Monday. This is not much comfort, but as with most problems we experience, there is now a trend for that.

If you are familiar with the term ‘quiet quitting‘, you would know that it refers to employees who just slowly ‘unsubscribe’ from their jobs by letting go of all the ‘extra miles’ that seem to be a requirement in most jobs.

People who ‘quiet quit’ simply do what is expected of them according to their contracts, and then go home. No extra hours or ‘commitment to the cause’. This has caused much debate on sites such as LinkedIn, with many employees feeling that ‘quiet quitting’ is just a term that companies abuse to hide the fact that most employees are underpaid for what is expected of them. You get what you pay for in a sense, so why bother working harder?

But even the most committed employees get a little down in the dumps on a Monday, and so the term ‘Bare Minimum Mondays’ was coined, to include the ‘ambitious, but not feeling it’ among us.

The term was first used by TikToker Marisa Jo, who describes it ‘as a way for her to quell the work pressure and hold herself accountable to “completing the least amount of work necessary to get by that day.”’ You can watch her explain the general idea below.

@itsmarisajo #BareMinimumMonday ♬ Summer Background Jazz – Jazz Background Vibes

Jo’s viral trend is just the latest in the long list of new trends shaping the workplace in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Please, we’ve been barely doing any work on Mondays since 1993, but as with most of the so-called trends nowadays, it’s nice to finally put a name to something that’s been there all along. Another positive aspect of naming our work issues is that companies are finally able to respond.

Monday blues have very real financial implications for business, and trends such as resenteeism, quiet quitting and even chaotic working were discussed during the recent Davos party.

“A lot of great employees will be productive when their companies set them up for success, I think that it’s less about the bare minimum Mondays having an impact on productivity and more about employees and employers working together to create the most productive workplace possible.”

I doubt whether there is anything companies can do to mitigate Monday Blues, unless they have an open bar and no work policy on the first day of the week. Maybe also Tuesday until about lunchtime.

[source:fortune]