B2 – Upper Intermediate
As the weekend draws to an end, many individuals experience “Sunday scaries”, a phenomenon characterized by a sense of unease and dread. Numerous workers all throughout the world feel the same way as they struggle with the upcoming workweek. What ought to be a day of rest and renewal becomes overshadowed by the weight of responsibilities and challenges that await them on Monday morning. Hence, some people are starting to do “bare minimum Mondays”.
Read this article to learn how “bare minimum Mondays” can help with “Sunday scaries”.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/18/bare-minimum-monday-how-it-works-and-what-experts-think-.html
Vocabulary Questions:
- What is the meaning of “to let someone off the hook”? “So alleviating that pressure and choosing to let myself off the hook was a much needed change of mindset going into the beginning of the week … which suddenly allowed me to be productive again.” Give two (2) synonyms or similar expressions and use ‘to let someone off the hook’ in your own sentence.
- What does the expression “to put one’s foot on the gas” mean? “With the volume of work or meetings on our plates, there needs to be a heightened focus on mental health and well-being instead of employees thinking they have to put their foot right on the gas at 9am on Monday.” Give two (2) synonyms or similar expressions and use ‘to put one’s foot on the gas’ in your own sentence.
- Define “to keep one’s finger on the pulse”. “One of the most powerful ways to get out in front of this is to keep your finger on the pulse of how employees are doing and what they need.” Give two (2) synonyms or similar expressions and use ‘to keep one’s finger on the pulse’ in your own sentence.
Discussion Questions:
- Do you also experience “Sunday Scaries”? How do you deal with it?
- Share your thoughts on “bare minimum Mondays”.
- Do you agree with this statement, “But bare minimum Mondays could lead workers to procrastinate to avoid stress.” Share your opinion on this tendency among workers.
- Have you ever tried implementing “bare minimum Mondays” in your own life? If so, what was your experience like? If not, what are the reasons you haven’t done so.
- Are there any potential drawbacks or limitations to adopting the “bare minimum Mondays” approach, and how can individuals mitigate them?
2 replies on “Bare Minimum Mondays”
Discussion Questions:
• Do you also experience “Sunday Scaries”? How do you deal with it?
Yes of course, I have had a lot of stress at work because of the deadlines of the project, also because we always had to test everything before deploy the software in production environment (go live), and also after go live, because always there are mistakes, problems, etc. and you should resolve them as quickly as possible… The IT work is very stressful.
I dealt with the stress practising sport every day, I always tried to reserve al least 60m per day to practice any kind of activity that release my adrenaline.
• Share your thoughts on “bare minimum Mondays”.
I think is useless, is a new trend in internet but without any kind of possibility to apply in the workplace. But I agree with some parts of the article that recommend the relevance of create a nice and comfortable work space for the wellbeing of their employees, to promote the free speech in order to improve the workload, to be flexible with the schedules, to try to adapt to a more flexible work (maybe an Hybrid kind of job) and, of course, to avoid any kind of presenteeism.
• Do you agree with this statement? “But bare minimum Mondays could lead workers to procrastinate to avoid stress.”
I disagree about the whole concept; it doesn’t have sense. If you try to do less on Monday you will have more workload for Tuesday and so on… and you will be more stressed. The key question is to reduce the workload, to have the right team to do the job, to have agreed deadlines, to have all the means you need to do your job, to adapt plan when is needed, etc.
• Have you ever tried implementing “bare minimum Mondays” in your own life? If so, what was your experience like?
Not at all, on the contrary, some time, in order to release the stress, I worked some Sundays to do some job and be able to sleep well Sunday night and have less pressure on Monday.
• Are there any potential drawbacks or limitations to adopting the “bare minimum Mondays” approach, and how can individuals mitigate them?
As I said before, from my point of view there are more downsides than upsides… I thik ios disrespectful with your workmates, could delay some important tasks, and it to pass the stressful workload to the next days… A complete non-sense.
You always do your best in writing your answers to your lessons’ discussion questions. That is commendable!
Here is one sentence you can revise:
You are getting better and better each time. Keep at it!