Here we go again. An estimated 17.5 million employees reportedly plan to skip work on Monday because they intend to stay up past their bedtimes to watch the Super Bowl. Apparently, the legislatures have not provided them with enough mandatory paid sick time and family leave. That is the highest number of anticipated absences since The Workforce Institute at Kronos began tracking useless information critical data. And for that record-breaking number of absences, can we all say, thank you Gen-Z for joining the stay-at-home force.
In addition to all the absenteeism, another 11 million workers told Kronos they expect to come to work late on Monday. Rumor has it that even Bob from Accounting plans to have a beer on Sunday night and might have to sleep it off. Between all the yapping by the office football experts and the unbridled workplace gambling in the week leading up to the game and the absenteeism and lateness on morning after, Challenger Gray’s annual survey predicts employers will suffer more than $5 billion in lost productivity due to the Super Bowl. And for what? With all these new sissy rules that prohibit breathing on the quarterback or hitting too high and hitting too low, we’re just watching a bunch of 300 pounders who can run a 4.30/40 playing two-hand touch.
A few years ago, Heinz came up with the brilliant idea to solve the call-outs by making the day after the Super Bowl a national holiday known as Smunday, because again, we don’t have enough holidays. Although Congress did not realize that the Ketchup guys were only kidding, we are fortunate that Smunday never made it out of the Congressional New Holiday Committee. This year though a real solution is on the horizon. A 16-year-old New York kid named Frankie started a petition on Change.org proposing that Super Bowl game day be a Saturday. Hey Pete Rozelle (he’s still commissioner right?), why didn’t you think of that? The kid’s point is simple common sense. Everyone can stay up late and watch the game and guess what…be good to go on Monday! Oh but wait, speaking of Congress, there’s a federal law about all this because, of course, there’s a law about everything!
That’s right, in 1961, around the time Tom Brady was born, Congress passed the Sports Broadcasting Act which prohibits the airing of NFL games on Fridays and Saturdays. It’s so refreshing to see that Congress had nothing important to do way back then too. The stated intent of the law was to “protect” college and high school football programs, you know, so parents didn’t have to choose between watching their own children play sports or a bunch of professional athlete millionaires. But since the Super Bowl is played well after the college and high school seasons are over, why not move the big game to Saturday and add another $5.1 billion to the nation’s economy?
That Frankie is our kind of kid and as of Friday morning, his petition has over 72,000 signatures. So Frankie, study hard, finish high school, go to college, then law school and in 2029, give us a call. Someday, all this could be yours.
Enjoy the game!
