August 25, 2017 • 39 mins
We all know what day Garfield hates. But what’s the best day to avoid a bank robbery? And when can you get the freshest sushi? And why are there 7 days in a week, anyway? Will and Mango dive into your calendars, and emerge with some pretty surprising answers. Featuring author Melissa Heckscher.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Guess what, Mango, what's that? Well, so, I know I've
told you about this before, but when I was six
or seven, I used to sneak into my sister's room
and listen to her latest albums on her fancy double
cassette playing Boom boss It. I have told you about
this definitely, and she was in high school at the time,
so I was introduced to all the important stuff this way.
It was Michael Jackson's Thriller. I think that was my
favorite that we did come out a few years earlier.
(00:22):
We were talking nineteen eighties six and some of the
biggest hits there was Madonna's Papa Don't Preach, Janet Jackson's
what Have You Done for Me Lately? Bon Jovis you
give love a bad name, Cyndi Lauper's True Colors. I mean,
the list goes on and on, and you're playing to
name them all. I'm guessing I could. I could. And
we're not talking about any of that Lionel Richie stuff
that I had to listen to in my mom's Toyota Cressida.
(00:44):
This was the good stuff. That's so much revolutionary music
at such a young age. I know, I know, well,
one of them that I haven't mentioned yet is the
Bengals manic Monday, And if you remember, Susanna Hass was
clearly frustrated because she was having this dream about Kiss
Valentino and then her stupid alarm goes off and of
course it's just another man Monday. I mean, she she
(01:06):
wished it was Sunday because as as you know, that
that's her fun day. But no, it was. It was Monday.
It was Monday. Tragic. I mean, I learned so much
from my sister's music collection. We might even have to
do an episode on this at some point, but the
lesson was clear. She did not like Monday. She wasn't alone.
I mean, they're obviously days that we learned to like
(01:28):
and just like pretty much universally. And when one of
our brilliant researchers, Autumn Whitefield Madrono, asked the question a
few weeks ago, what are the best and worst days
of the week, I thought, well, I know what the
Bengals would say, but what does science say? And how
did the whole seven day week come to be in
the first place. So these are just a couple of
the things we're going to talk about today. Hei Their
(02:06):
podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson,
and as always I'm joined by my good friend man guest,
and on the other side of that soundproof glasses, our
friend and producer Tristan McNeil. Not today, we're asking the
question what's the best day of the week, you know,
according to science? And maybe we'll throw in a few
opinions here and there as well. Yeah, this one could
turn into a heated debate. Well, we'll see. But before
(02:26):
we get started, I wanted to recognize a few winners
from our Weirdest College Courses episode, you know, where we
ask listeners to tell us the weirdest college classes they've taken.
You remember this all right? Here the top three, all
of whom will be getting Part Time Genius t shirts.
The first one comes from Alicio Martinez. Uh. The class
was called Math in Square Dancing. Yeah, I thought this
(02:48):
is awesome. It's taught at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois.
And I don't know how anyone hadn't really thought about
how to combine to universally love things, you know, math
and square dancing. It's pretty great, all right, I like that,
So you'll be getting one Alicio. Now Yvonne Jones a
class called Goldberg's Cannon Making Whoopee at Baits College. This
is great. It's about all about the lifetime work of
(03:10):
Whoopee Goldberg. That's such a good class, alright. And then
the third one from Rachel Shine, a class called snow
Skiing at Texas A and M. Now, that doesn't seem
that weird of a class, right, but as she explained,
there was no snow and there were no mountains or hills.
It was taught on astro turf and it was usually hot,
so they wore shirts and T shirts and shorts. Yeah. Great, alright,
(03:34):
So those are our top three. It's so much fun
to hear from you guys. Congrats to our winners. Remember
to keep the interesting facts coming to part time Genius
at how stuff works dot com or find us on
Facebook or Twitter. You can also call our seven fact
hotline one eight four four pt Genius. All right, let's
dive in. You know, I think we need to start
by acknowledging what a strange thing a week is. So
(03:57):
what do you mean by that? I mean, well, it's
one of those things that, honestly I hadn't thought that
much about. Before one of our terrific researchers, Autumn, pointed
it out. And that's the fact that a week is
this imperfect human created unit of time that falls in
between two units of time that nature dictates. So you
have the day dictated by Earth's rotation on the shorter side,
and then you've got the month that's roughly dictated by
(04:18):
the lunar cycle on the longer end. Yeah, it's definitely
weird and doesn't pretty much the whole world us a
seven day week now. Yeah, even in places that don't
use the Gregorian calendar, you find that they're using this too,
and and it's something that we'll talk about in a bit.
And that's how contemporary weeks are built around pivotal days.
And even though you might find the pivotal days being
different from one society to another, there's still some peak
(04:40):
that's constant and the rest of the week is built
around that. Well, we should definitely talk about why the
world settled on a seven day week, but first can
we look at why creating a unit of time that
functions between a day and a month is so problematic?
I mean, the fact is there's no way to divide
up that time evenly in a way that it recurs regularly.
A lunar cycle is twenty nine point five days long,
(05:01):
meaning that if we made all months thirty days leading
to you know, ten day weeks, we'd still be off.
It's just such a strange thing. No matter what you
propose as a replacement for the seven day week, there's
gonna be some irregularity. Yeah, and the ten day week
thing has definitely been tried plenty of times. Yeah, it
was interesting to get a refresh on this during our
research and to see how earlier societies tried to address
(05:22):
the irregularities. In some they just solve the issue, kind
of how we do with leap ears, Like the ancient
Greeks had these ten day periods and occasionally they just
be nine days long to make the adjustments. Yeah, and
at first glance, you think that using a ten day
or a five day week could more closely pull off
an even division of the lunar month, you know, more
so than our seven day weeks. And and that's true,
(05:42):
but then you have another problem. Oh yeah, this is fascinating.
You're talking about temporal regularity. Yeah, exactly, so. Evianta Zerobabel
he's the author of a book called The Seven Day Circle,
and he talks about how temporal regularity is such an
important part of the development of human race. And as
he puts it, quote, imagine, for example, having to cancel
regular Sunday family gatherings or Tuesday classes every month or
(06:05):
so due to the lack of a Sunday or a
Tuesday on that particular week. I guess it's kind of
similar to what leaplings have to deal with, you know,
those people who are born on February twenty nine, except
it would happen far more regularly, and it also be
so much more inconvenient. Oh definitely. I mean, imagine how
difficult it would be to coordinate activities that should happen
more than monthly, but less than daily. I mean, right now,
(06:26):
it's just so easy to remember something like, you know,
I've got soccer practice on Tuesdays or something like that.
I mean, there'd be some clear adjusting there. But as
Zara Babo points out, it's one thing to think about
the weekdays tethered disport or hobby, but it gets even
more important when you're thinking about it for basic survival.
Like let's say you have to ride to town A
couple of times a month just to get provisions from
(06:47):
the farmer's market. If it takes you two hours to
get to town, you definitely want to be sure that
when you get there the market's open. So knowing that
the markets on Wednesdays takes care of that and and
allows you to make plans. Yeah, I mean it makes
a lot of sense, and it's weird that we don't
often stop to think about it. I mean, the week
is the longest unit of time that's not at all
dependent on nature. So it's pretty significant as far as
(07:08):
a philosophical shift in our development. And in a way,
it's like our way of saying that we're ready to
stop solely depending on nature and instead begin to establish
our temporar rhythms around a unit that we created. And
it is worth noting that there's no compelling evidence of
any major seven day biological processes in nature. I mean,
there does appear to be a form of algae that's
(07:29):
used to study circadian rhythm because it has exhibited signs
of some seven day biological rhythms, but it's a bit
of a stretch to think that it's played into how
we think about time in any real way. Yeah, that
definitely sounds like a stretch. Al Right, well, let's talk
about the creation of the seven day week. I know
you did some digging into this with a ton of
great help from our research or autumn, So tell us
what you know. Sure, well, this can actually be its
(07:51):
own episode because it's an interesting history. But to boil
it down, it was really the result of early Jewish
cultures and Babylonian astronomy thinking up. So let me plane.
As you know, Judaism was focused on a seven day cycle,
as depicted in the Torah, you know, seventh day of
rest and all that, and and the other six days
were really just days leading up to the Sabbath. Then
you have the Babylonians, who had come up with the
(08:12):
idea that the seven celestial bodies that moved across the sky,
that they had certain effects on everything humans did. Five
of these were planets as we know them now, and
and the other two were the sun in the moon,
but still seven. So the Babylonians they also had a
seven day cycle. No, I mean, at least there's no
evidence of that. But here's how they came together. In
the second century b C. The Alexandrians brought together three
(08:34):
beliefs that were pretty firm at that point. The first
was you've got these seven planets which came into particular order,
and then you had the twenty four hour day. And
third there's this idea that the planet that ruled the
first hour of each day ruled the entire day. It
didn't take too long for the set of beliefs to
run smack dab into Judaism, and the two sets of
beliefs sanked up by the end of the first century
(08:55):
see the Sabbath again, the only day that really mattered
to the Jewish cycle, and the day of Saturn, just
one of the seven planets in Babylonian astrology, were one
and the same, And by the third centuries the week
was pretty widespread. Yeah, and the and the seven day
cycle stuck and was gradually adopted by pretty much everyone.
Though this isn't to say that there weren't a couple
(09:16):
of pretty big attempts to implement different systems. I was
actually curious to see who tried to come up with
better systems over time, and found a couple of good
stories that, to be honest, I had actually forgotten about
from history class, Like what, all right, well, let's start.
Let's start with the French Republicans after the French Revolution.
During the revolution, assembly members decided to come up with
a new calendar, still with twelve months, but they wanted
(09:38):
to make the other time units as close to metric
as they could. So each month had three ten day weeks.
Each day would have ten hours divided into a hundred
minutes each, and each minute would have a hundred seconds.
I mean, it's actually so confusing to think about this.
Then there would be five or six days left at
the end of the year that would be reserved for
a celebration. It is interest thing to note that this
(10:00):
system is very similar to what the Egyptians had created
when they became the first civilization to create weeks, which
is all super interesting and I so want to get
into time machine and witnessed the celebrations. It sounds really fun.
But you can see how that structure it could make
sense if it's what people have been used to. But
given that they were used to a seven day calendar
with twenty four hours per day, it was probably pretty
confusing why they even attempt this. But there were a
(10:23):
couple of reasons. I mean that the Biggie beyond just
being a more rational system. As they saw it, it it
was that they wanted this very real new beginning, you know,
kind of a break from the past. And obviously that
didn't last forever. So how long did it last? Round
honestly find it surprising that it lasted as long as
it did. It was around twelve years, and it was
just too confusing for everyone, especially because so many refused
(10:44):
to stop keeping track of the old calendar. Even find
reports that when newspapers were required by a lot equipped
publishing the old date alongside the new one, people were
still using the old calendar to keep track of certain
important dates, and of course to observe their holy days,
and many of them would take that day of rest
along with the scheduled day of rest, and ultimately there
(11:05):
were just too many days with little significance in between
these anchor days, and so finally it was scrapped. I
still confused that I lasted over a decade, and it
makes me think about the attempts over the years to
get Americans to convert to the metric system, like a
system that actually makes a lot of sense, but it's
just way too hard to get people to move from
something they're used to especially if they don't see it
as broken. And obviously that change was like politically loaded.
(11:28):
But um, you were talking about the French, but you
said there was another attempt. Yeah, that's right. So they
were also the Soviets, and they tried to change things
up in nineteen nine. And this was really more of
an effort to increase production from the workforce. I don't
know if you know this, but the Soviets were kind
of big on this idea of getting more out of
the workfloor. I heard that. And as they saw at
the regular seven day week left machines and workers idle
(11:51):
for two out of every seven days. And that's just
not efficient as they saw it. I'll warn you it
is pretty crazy what they tried to do. I'm ready
for all right. So they created these five day weeks
and sets of six to get these thirty day months
and months that had thirty one days. Well, they just
made that another work day, which is so Soviet, and
(12:11):
that part so far you can follow. But the workers
would have one out of every five days off. And
here's where it gets a little crazy, all right. So
instead of having some big anchor day like the sabbath
or a weekend, they just assigned one of the five
days to each person as their personal day off. Each
day was then assigned a color, and then people were
assigned a color and a number, and the corresponding color
(12:34):
was your That sounds so confused. I told you it's crazy.
So did uh? Families are groups of friends, like, did
they all get the same day off? No? And that
was a big problem. If you look at people's address books,
you'd see people having to keep up with when their
loved ones days off were, and they have to write
their colors next to each of their names. It was
just so, so so confusing. Yeah, I'm not that organized,
(12:56):
and it's not surprising. Why why this wouldn't have lasted?
I mean people couldn't have their worship days together, which
I guess matters less to the Soviets, but also you
know what about just getting your family together and playing sports? Yeah,
you're right, it was. It was a big problem. So
even though a year after it launched, the state was
claiming that nearly three fourths of the workers were on
this continual production week, it still didn't sit well with
(13:18):
people because their families and social circles they were being
broken up. But did it meet their goal like, did
it increase production? Well, that was one of the nails
in the coffin to it. It actually didn't really increase production,
or at least not by much. Machines were wearing out
and they couldn't be fixed because they didn't have off days,
and it was tough on workers. So Stalin then decided
(13:38):
to put the plan on hold until all the issues
could be worked out. And you know, you think they
would just go back to the seven day week, but nope,
not the Soviets. They they couldn't accept the idea of
going back to that, so they decided on a sixth
day week instead, and everyone had the same day off
at least, but it was still nearly impossible to get
everyone in rule areas to follow this new calendar. So
(14:00):
by around nineteen or so, the Soviets were back to
the seven day week, which sounds exhausting and try explaining
and I actually think I need a break for a quiz.
But we decided to do this episode on the best
day of the week. We were both reminded of this
terrific book by Melissa Hecksher. It was called Be Safe,
Simple Strategies for Death Free Living, and we were fortunate
(14:23):
enough to get Melissa on the line to answer a
few questions about our favorite parts of her book. Melissa,
Welcome to Part Time Genius. Hi, thanks for having me on. Awesome. So, Melissa,
before we dive into specifics, I was curious, how did
the book idea come to you? Were you always just
worried about the possible ways you could die? Actually kind of,
I'm sort of one of those people that worries about everything, So,
(14:45):
you know, when when it came to me, I was
living in New York City at the time and doing
a lot of driving and traveling by train and subway,
and I just was always wondering every time I got
on the subway what car I should get onto. Should
I be in the back of the subway or middle
of the subway, you know? Or when I was driving
to and from Philadelphia, where my parents live, I always
(15:06):
wondered whether I should be in the middle lane or
the right lane, or these small choices that we make
every day to stay safe. And I was always thinking
about it. So I wanted to do a little more
research to find out the answers to those questions. And
wasn't it Salvador Dolly that used to like to ride
in the front car so that he would get there earlier,
get there first. The front car actually is the safest
(15:28):
because it's where usually the conductor is. All right, well,
you know this episode is on the best day of
the week, or asking the question what is the best
day of the week. And of course we thought about
you because several of your your entries in this great
book have to do, you know, with the best day
of doing certain things, so we thought we'd ask you
about a few of those. So, I know you mentioned
in the book the safest time to go to the bank,
(15:50):
So tell us when that is. The safest time to
go to the bank? Is really between Tuesday and Thursday, um,
in the afternoon, because historically bank robberies seem to happen
on Fridays, and people think that's because that's pay day.
So I guess the bank robbers assumed the bank is
going to have so much more money on Friday. That's
(16:11):
that's just when most bank robberies happen. So if you
want to avoid them, to stay away from the bank
on Friday morning because they also usually happen in the morning. Yeah,
how about the best day to order sushi? I love sushi,
so this one was important to me, especially because I
around when I was writing the book is when I
got pregnant, so I was extra careful with things like sushi.
(16:32):
Um So, the best time to get sushi is on Friday,
and that's because most fish markets are closed on Sundays.
So you definitely don't want to get sushi on a
Monday because the chances are that it hasn't it's not
a fresh delivery, so you're not getting the freshest fish
that way, which means that you have a greater chance
of possibly getting sick from that fish. Oh that's interesting.
(16:54):
It makes a lot of sense though when you say that. Well,
here's one that wasn't on a specific day, but you
addressed in a book the safest month to get elective surgery,
and I thought this one was super interesting. It is interesting,
um the safest most most residents graduate in June, and
so they start at their new positions at a hospital
in July. Um So, the safest month is actually June
(17:18):
because the older residents that have been there all year
and they know the system, they know the routine, they
know their peers, they've been there all year. Whereas in July. Um.
They're new and so not to say that they can't
do their jobs, but they maybe don't know that they're
not used to working together. There might be a few
more mistakes or errors that happened in July than than
happen in June. So if you can help it, schedule
(17:40):
your surgery closer to you know, maybe May or June
and not July or August. There are a few parts
of the book that weren't related to specific days, but
we're just so fun that we want to ask you
about them. So he tells what's the safest room in
a hotel? This one was a personal one for me too,
because I did a lot of traveling by myself, so
I always was a little bit worried. Is to the
(18:01):
safest place to stay, especially as a woman alone, And
the answer to that question is between the fourth and
seventh floors, if you have a choice, if it's a
high rise hotel, and in no matter what kind of
a hotel, near the elevator. And that's just because there's
more foot traffic and so you're safer being around a
lot of people, because if someone's going to break into
your hotel room or approach you as you're entering your room.
(18:23):
It's less likely to happen where there's a lot of traffic.
And then as far as the floors, most fire ladders
don't reach above seven floors, So if you had to
be evacuated in the case of emergency, if you're on
a really high floor. First, it's obviously it's going to
take you longer to get down if you're doing stairs.
But um, if you had to be evacuated by fire ladder,
be harder because the ladders don't always go that high.
(18:46):
So fourth and seven floors near the elevator, and that's
pretty much the safest place you can be. I think
I need to change my strategy. Actually, when I get
to a hotel, I often request a room away from
the elevator just because it's noisy there. But I didn't
realize how unsafe it was. Well, you know, it's a
trade off. So you want a quiet room and you
might not be as safe, but you can sleep better. Yeah,
(19:08):
all right, Well, there was one other that I that
I saw here that I thought was just really interesting,
and so, so, what is the safest stall in a
public restroom? What's interesting about this question is that there's
a lot of studies that have looked at this question. Um,
there's scientists that have actually collected samples from bathrooms to
just to figure out which stall is the dirtiest. And um,
(19:29):
the safest stall has been determined to be the first
one or the one closest to the door, and that's
because most people like a little bit of privacy when
they go to the bathroom, so they go a little
further from the door. Um, the dirtiest one turned out
to be the middle stall. Um, which if you think
it would be the furthest from the door, but it's
actually the middle and the safest, least jermy room stall
(19:52):
is um, the one closest to the door, and it's
usually also the one with the most toilet paper, so bonus.
It's not surprising that there would have been several studies
on this because I think it is something that everyone
who's walked into a restroom has thought this before, right, right,
besides that jerk that walks out without washing his hands. Well,
(20:13):
this is terrific. You know, this has always been a
book that we've we've enjoyed flipping through and reading, even
though it's been out for some time now. So I
hope all our listeners will check out be Safe Simple
Strategies for Death Free Living. Melissa, thanks so much for
joining us on part Time Genius. Thank you so much
for having me. Welcome back to part Time Genius. Before
(20:43):
the break, we were talking about the attempts by the
French and Soviets and others in history to move away
from the seven day week to other systems that we're
seen is maybe more logical. It's really interesting to see
how they all failed. I mean, what would you say
is the baseline reason none of them panned out? Well,
there was obviously a big problem with the reason in
these new systems were put in place to begin with.
I think they all underestimated just how disorienting the new
(21:06):
structures would be. Let me think about it. When you
change up the length of a week, you throw off
someone's social rhythm. I mean, what day of the week
do I go to the market. You throw off their
personal rhythm. So you know, they were working six days
in a row and then got a day of rest,
and now they have to work nine before they get
a day arrest. And then, maybe most importantly, you throw
off their religious rhythm. You know, people were used to
worshiping on Sundays and now suddenly Sundays don't even really
(21:29):
exist anymore. So it's just way too confusing and frustrating
and frankly upsetting for these people. Well, and when you
consider the Soviets, it feels like there was something even
bigger going on. By dividing time into five different calendars,
they were really creating five different societies, all randomly assigned. Yeah,
and all of this really threw off that temporal harmony
that Zaibabel talks about. And we can't underestimate the role
(21:51):
of religion here. Think about how important a designated weekly
holy day is for each of the major religions. You know,
the Jews set themselves apart by established the Sabbath early on.
Christians were actually observing both as they were Jews and Christians,
and they were observing the Sabbath on Saturdays and then
their own day, which became Sunday, and eventually they just
(22:11):
focused on Sunday in order to differentiate themselves. Yeah, and
we see this with Muslims as well, with Muhammad choosing
Fridays as the Muslim holy day exactly. And with all
that set so firmly and stone, it's hard to see
ever moving away from the seven day week at this point.
All right, well that is some fascinating stuff, but I
think it's time that we fast forward several centuries and
get to the big question of the day, and that is,
(22:33):
you know, what are the best and worst days of
the week? Well, why don't we start with the worst?
And it didn't take Garfield telling us to guess what
day most people think was the worst day of the
week Mondays? But why Mondays? And what does science have
to say about this? You're reminding me earlier about that
a great Kathy Benjamin Peace over at Mental Flaws, and
I think it was called something like six scientific reasons
(22:54):
why Mondays are the worst? So why don't we start
with that? Why don't we talk about that one for
a minute? Sure? Well, one big that shouldn't chock us
is if we think back to our sleep episode, weekends
really throw off our sleep patterns. I mean, it's funny
because every time we go through a daylight savings time change,
everyone complains about our body clocks being thrown off, But
most of us are doing this to ourselves every single weekend.
(23:15):
Like we think we're doing ourselves a favor when we
catch up on sleep, But in fact, we're just making
it that much harder to wake up on Monday morning.
Our body clocks are much more sensitive than we realize,
and staying up a couple of hours later and sleeping
a couple hours later like that all throws us off
a little once again, sleep is so annoying? All right, Well,
what else did Benjamin say? Well? She also talks about
the fact that because we often eat and drink and
(23:37):
generally indulge more over the weekends, people tend to feel
worse about themselves on Monday. They have even been studies
of women to confirm that they feel less attractive on
Mondays because of the weekend indulging, and it's part of
why people are more likely to start dieting on Mondays
than any other day, which does make sense. And what's
also interesting is that people actually are less healthy on Mondays.
As Benjamin writes, scientists have found that even people who
(24:00):
generally maintain their weight way the most at the beginning
of the week. Mondays are also the most common day
for people to suffer heart attacks and strokes. Even if
you don't end up in the hospital, your blood pressure
is higher on Monday, as is your chance of getting
sick in general. Wow, and doesn't she talk about people
just not liking their jobs as well. Yeah, there have
been a lot of polls showing that the strong majority
(24:21):
of people are not big fans of their jobs, or
at least not that inspired by them. This is why
you often see people experiencing feelings of depression or anxiety
on Sunday evenings. They just don't want to go back
to work. So the evidence really is stacking up against
Mondays and I guess we shouldn't be shocked by this. Well,
that may be true, but there's another part to it
that may be the most interesting, and that's the fact
(24:41):
that if you actually study people's moods throughout the work week,
you don't necessarily find that they were feeling that much
worse on Mondays than you know, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday.
But then if you ask them to recall their moods
and their stress levels, they almost always report Mondays is
being consistently worse. So a big part of it is
that we're telling ourselves on Mondays are the worst. It
is interesting and I've actually been reading a little about
(25:03):
this too, and that's where because we believe that Mondays
are harder and more stressful and generally bluer than other days.
We then retrofit our memories of Mondays to fit that expectation,
So we mentally exaggerate some of the worst things we
remember about Mondays to represent the entirety of Mondays. Our
brains are pretty tricky, and as our researcher Autumn said
in one of our conversations, the Monday blues are a
(25:26):
form of social organization. Yeah, And and just to be clear,
it's not as though there aren't bad things about Monday.
We talked about some of those. It's just that there's
definitely a bit of a placebo effect going on here,
and we exaggerate and we generalize certain memories and expectations
about Mondays. All right, Well, then if we tend to
view Mondays is worse even though we don't necessarily actually
always feel worse on Mondays, would you say there's a
(25:47):
day that could rival Monday for the worst? Oh? Definitely.
There have been a couple of studies to show that
our moods may actually reach their lower points on Wednesdays.
Part of this might be because we're feeling pretty overwhelmed
at work, and it's when we're the first is the
way from a weekend on both it's you know, before
or after? All Right, Well, I feel like that's enough
of the sad talk, so let's get to the best
day of the weekend before we get to the science
(26:07):
of it. I'm curious, what's your favorite day of the week?
Mango months, Tuesday, Tuesday? And why Tuesday. It's because I
was born on a Tuesday, so I started paying attention
to them. But then I don't know, like all the
anxiety of Sunday and Monday is over and they're low expectations,
and I don't know, there's a full week ahead. It
feels like, oh, that's nice. How about you? I think
(26:29):
that's probably safe Fridays because you know, I have a
busy week. We have all our recording on Tuesdays and Thursdays,
and I love doing that. Friday's is kind of a
day where we get to plan for the weeks ahead,
think about future episodes, and then of course the weekend
is ahead, you know, So it's nice. I think those
are my favorites. But but what do the studies say? Well,
several studies show Saturday is the winner. It's the day
(26:50):
where people feel they're free to do, you know, what
they want with their time, at least more than other days,
and they know they've got a whole other day of
weekend ahead of them. Except for the most part, people
tend to experience that to Day's is better, both in
terms of their actual moods and how they remember their moods. Well,
I mean that said, don't you think there's still a
little bit of the reverse Monday effect going on with Saturday's? Definitely.
(27:10):
So while we do tend to actually feel better on Saturday's,
we also tend to look back at our weekends with
rosier glasses than we do our working time, and we
tend to underestimate how rewarded we are by our work
if we enjoy what we do. So, yeah, there's a
bit of cultural bias going on there. All right, Well
what about Friday's. Yeah, this is probably why Friday's bring
the highest mood of the work week. We're excited about
(27:30):
the weekend, which we believe will be better than the
work week. I mean, there's an entire restaurant chain named
after the concept, t J I Friday's with some of
those chicken fingers. Well, before you go running off with
some honeymustard covered chicken. We should probably play a quick quiz,
and then I want to hear about the facts he
found about the days we haven't said much about. All Right,
I think I can wait for that. So who do
(27:56):
we have on the line today, Mango, Today, we've got
a very special guest, the owner of a one a
full comic bookstore in Baltimore, Guerrilla King Comics, Ian Sayer.
Welcome to Part time Genius. Thank you well. Just before
we get started, we wanted to say we love the
intro to your store on your site, and I'm just
gonna read it here for our listeners. It says here
at Guerrilla King Comics, we believe that sequential art is
(28:17):
the highest form of storytelling. We believe that gaily clad
muscle men should pummel each other in the streets with
lamp posts and other large objects. It's their right and
it's their privilege. We believe that if comics are religion,
then your friendly local comic bookshop should be like a church.
We want to be your weird comics church. It's just
(28:38):
such a warm and welcoming intro. Well, that's how I
feel about comics. It's it's it's as simple as that,
you know, I mean, comics are the religious experience for me,
and like Wednesdays might samit, you know, So today's show
is about days of the weekend. Comic book stores have
Wednesdays of super special day. Can you tell us what
(28:58):
happens on that day? Yeah, I mean Wednesday is a
new comic book day. If you love comics and look
forward to reading the next one after you just for
the last one, Wednesday is your day. Imagine if you
could only watch TV like one day week, you know
what I mean, Like that would be like you're awesome
TV day, Like this is that way for comics. So
is there anything unusual or super fun about the rhythm
(29:21):
of the day. There's a lot, I mean, you know,
it's it's it's the busiest day. There's a lot of
print forward on Tuesday. Most people that are regulars, they
keep they keep a pullish for us, meaning we we
take all their books every week and set them aside
and bagging board them for them and they can just
come in and they won't sell out. I see the
same people every week, and that I love these people,
(29:43):
like we have this one guy. Have you ever seen
the whole Chris party routine where he's interviewing people and
he asked them like a simple yes or no question.
Like he's interviewing comic part and he's like remember that
part of the song where you said love to take
people to the love you made? Yeah, and he's like, oh,
that was great. All of this, all these like answers,
they're like, yeah, that was greatful. Like we have this
(30:04):
one guy who'll come in and just be like remember
that time that me they's always say in the stewards
and he came out of the sewers and they killed
different body outside of the sewers and its closed were
all ripped up. It's like there'll be a best school
read like, yeah, I remember that and he's like, yeah,
that was awesome. And he's like and like, I don't know,
it is awesome. Like I missed these guys over the
course of the week, and then they come in and
it's like, I'm saying, so fantastic, And I have to
(30:26):
know do you sneak a peek at comics that come
in on Tuesdays or do you wait it out to
enjoy it with your customers? Don't no way, I read
them as soon as I go home. And have an
uninterrupted hour. It doesn't really even feel like sneaking a peek.
The way that um Our orders are set up, you
kind of have to. If they're going to reorder comics,
it's really good. You can only do it before a
(30:47):
certain time on Wednesdays. We have to like immediately read them.
Like you know, if like say, you know, Storm is
having a baby and you didn't know about it, and
everybody's gonna want to reorder that book, you gotta reorder
it immediately. So yeah, so you kind of have to
read the books as soon as they're out. All right.
So what's the game called today, Mango? It's called Name
that day, that's right. So we'll be providing you with
(31:08):
a word bank of several days of the week. Now.
These include Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. We
have intentionally left off Tuesday, so please don't guess Tuesday.
Now we're gonna ask you a few questions and see
how many you can answer, and just so you know,
some of the answers repeat. All right, are you ready
to get started? Okay? Question number one. The nickname hump
(31:30):
Day was allegedly given to this day in n when
Roy Man coined the phrase at a DuPont water cooler.
What day are we talking about? I think Wednesday? Yea
one for one question number two. Nachos went mainstream after
Howard Costell commented on a tasty new snack he was
eating during this night football. What night are we talking about? Monday?
(31:53):
M hmm, that's right. Number three. This day was the
day of the Last Supper. It's also Thor's day, and
just in case you're trying to picture him, Thor is
the one whose chariot is driven by goats. Abe was
kind of a beginning. But if that's right? Three for three?
Number four, This Adams family daughter is called Little Wanda
(32:14):
and Brazil. What day of the week are we talking about?
What day? Whoa so so? Ian's already four for four?
Let's see if you can get a perfect score here.
Number five. This day gets the dubious honor of both
having an ice Cube movie and a Rebecca Black song
named for it. What day of the week are we
talking about? Definitely Friday? Five for five and the last
(32:37):
question number six And because you like comic art, the
Bengals weren't the only chart topping band to sing about
this manic Day of the Week. The Chippetts Alvin and
the Chipmunks Lady Friends also covered the song what Day
did They sing About? Monday? Classic? Alright, so fun want
to tell him how he did Mango? So ians Gordon
astounding six for six, he ran the tables and he'll
(33:00):
be going home with our very top prize. A handwritten
note singing our praises to his mom or boss congratulations.
I think what welcome back to part time genius. All right,
(33:22):
So we've talked a lot about Mondays and Saturdays, and
a little about Wednesdays and Fridays, but I think we
need to show some love to the other days as well.
Why don't you tell us a few facts that you
found about each one? All right, let's do it. And
I know we need to talk about the others, but
I've got a couple more Monday facts here that I
wanted to share. Alright, So Monday is the safest day
of the week to have surgery. Hopefully you'll remember to
(33:43):
show up because it's also the day with the most
missed medical appointments. It's also the best day to apply
for a job, meaning that a higher percentage of people
who submit applications on Mondays and to advance to the
next stage than any other day. So Mondays are redeemed
a bit. What about Tuesday's, Well, Tuesday is the day
for getting stuff done in more ways than one. It's
the most productive day at work, according to multiple studies,
(34:06):
and this is in spite of or or maybe because of,
the fact that it's also the day with the highest
email volume. It's the most popular day for exercise, and
it's apparently the best day to day trade. I know
you've been talking about getting into day trading, Mango, right,
so maybe you can stop making Tuesday one of our
recording days. You can just focus on your day trade. Okay,
(34:26):
good call, All right, Oh but wait, actually, here's another
study that showed Wednesdays have the highest returns and lowest
volatility on the stock market. So maybe we'll let you
focus on your stocks that day too. But you know,
all this despite the fact that, as we discussed, it
tends to be the worst day mood wise, according to
some studies. And what about Thursdays, Well, contrary to what
(34:46):
most people think, it's Thursday's, not Tuesdays that are best
for buying airline tickets, and that's a big So let's
just focus on that for Thursdays. Friday is the worst
day to have surgery and the likeliest day to get fired.
But you know, hey, we're excited about the weekend, so
who cares. Saturday is the day you're likeliest to die
in a car crash. But the good news is that
you should just fly because Saturday sees the fewest flight delays.
(35:10):
It's also the likeliest to inspire songwriting. That is, if
you take the Christian hymns out of the equation, it
has the greatest number of day of the week songs
in the Amazon database. And finally, Sundays are the best
day to get out on one of those long day
trip car rides because it's the day with the fewest
road passengers. All Right, So there's some really good facts
in there, and it's a shame use so many of
(35:31):
them up because you know what's next. Oh don't worry,
I've got some good ones for the part time genius
fact off. Okay, well, why don't you kick us off? Then?
All right? Well, when I started the show about a
(35:52):
story on manic Monday, I decided to hold off on
sharing one bit. Do you I need to read the
lyrics again, Well, did you know that Prince actually he
wrote that song and it hit number two on the charts.
And the only reason that didn't hit number one another
Prince written song, one he wrote for himself. Kiss. So,
for the first twenty six years of her existence, Wednesday
Adams and the rest of her family didn't have names.
(36:14):
The Adams Family creator finally gave the family members names
for the nineteen sixties TV show, and her name reportedly
came from the nursery rhyme Wednesday's child is full of woe. Alright,
Well back to the topic of Monday's being a bummer.
We can't have a fact off without a Garfield fact.
So did you know that the Syndicated strip is the
Guinness World Record holder for being the world's most widely
(36:34):
syndicated strip. It's in more than hundred newspapers and other
places around the world. I've got a great Garfield fact too.
Did you ever notice as a kid that the voice
of Garfield and all the TV specials in the eighties
was the same voice as Peter Bankman from the animated
show The Real Ghostbusters. I did. I Actually I knew
it was the same person because I could hear it,
I didn't know who it was. Yeah, it's a guy
(36:56):
named Lorenzo Music, but that's not really my fact. Turns
out he's not the only one who to have voiced
both characters. The other one is a little more famous.
Bill Murray, of course, was the original Peter Bankman, but
he was also the voice of Garfield and Garfield the
movie back in two thousand four. Oh nice, all right.
One of my favorite Rolling Stones songs, Ruby Tuesday, was
written by Keith Richards about his girlfriend Linda Keith. Apparently
(37:19):
Linda had ditched Richards for Jimmy Hendricks and got into
some drugs, and he tried to win her back and
even got her parents involved, telling them that she was
not doing well. I think, you know, when Keith Richards
is trying to intervene, it may be time to come back.
But it didn't go well, and they didn't speak again
for many years. And I'd love to do an interview
with her, not about Keith Richards, because I just want
(37:39):
to know how she feels about the fact that by
the Transitive property there's also a giant restaurant chain with
a big old salad bar named after her. So speaking
of family, restaurant chains. Did you know that T G
I Fridays may seem like a family establishment made for
Middle America, but it actually started out as a singles
bar in Manhattan's Upper East Side in the mid sixties.
This per fume salesman named Alan Stillman felt like there
(38:02):
wasn't a good bar in the area that both men
and women felt comfortable at, so he bought a bar
on sixty three first and renamed it T G A. Friday's,
and the rest is history. We've got to hear this quote,
Stillman told Edible Geography. My timing was exquisite because I
opened T J I Friday's the exact year the pill
was invented. I happened to hit the sexual revolution on
the head, and the result was that, without really intending it,
(38:24):
I became the founder of the first singles bar. WoT
I can't hate that one, MAGA. The trophy is yours. Congratulations,
Thank you, thank you, and thank you out there for listening.
Listen to you next time. Thanks again for listening. Part
(38:49):
Time Genius is a production of how stuff works and
wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people who do the
important things. We couldn't even begin to understand. Christa McNeil
does the editing thing. Noel Brown made the themes long
and does the MIXI mixy sounding. Jerry Rowland does the
exact producer thing. Gabeluesier is our lead researcher, with support
from the research army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and
Lucas Adams and Eves. Jeff Cook gets the show to
(39:11):
your ears. Good job, Eves. If you like what you heard,
we hope you'll subscribe, And if you really really like
what you've heard, maybe you could leave a good review
for us. Do we do? We forget Jason? Jason who
Guess what, Mango, what's that? Well, so, I know I've
told you about this before, but when I was six
or seven, I used to sneak into my sister's room
and listen to her latest albums on her fancy double
cassette playing Boom boss It. I have told you about
this definitely, and she was in high school at the time,
so I was introduced to all the important stuff this way.
It was Michael Jackson's Thriller. I think that was my
favorite that we did come out a few years earlier.
(00:22):
We were talking nineteen eighties six and some of the
biggest hits there was Madonna's Papa Don't Preach, Janet Jackson's
what Have You Done for Me Lately? Bon Jovis you
give love a bad name, Cyndi Lauper's True Colors. I mean,
the list goes on and on, and you're playing to
name them all. I'm guessing I could. I could. And
we're not talking about any of that Lionel Richie stuff
that I had to listen to in my mom's Toyota Cressida.
(00:44):
This was the good stuff. That's so much revolutionary music
at such a young age. I know, I know, well,
one of them that I haven't mentioned yet is the
Bengals manic Monday, And if you remember, Susanna Hass was
clearly frustrated because she was having this dream about Kiss
Valentino and then her stupid alarm goes off and of
course it's just another man Monday. I mean, she she
(01:06):
wished it was Sunday because as as you know, that
that's her fun day. But no, it was. It was Monday.
It was Monday. Tragic. I mean, I learned so much
from my sister's music collection. We might even have to
do an episode on this at some point, but the
lesson was clear. She did not like Monday. She wasn't alone.
I mean, they're obviously days that we learned to like
(01:28):
and just like pretty much universally. And when one of
our brilliant researchers, Autumn Whitefield Madrono, asked the question a
few weeks ago, what are the best and worst days
of the week, I thought, well, I know what the
Bengals would say, but what does science say? And how
did the whole seven day week come to be in
the first place. So these are just a couple of
the things we're going to talk about today. Hei Their
(02:06):
podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson,
and as always I'm joined by my good friend man guest,
and on the other side of that soundproof glasses, our
friend and producer Tristan McNeil. Not today, we're asking the
question what's the best day of the week, you know,
according to science? And maybe we'll throw in a few
opinions here and there as well. Yeah, this one could
turn into a heated debate. Well, we'll see. But before
(02:26):
we get started, I wanted to recognize a few winners
from our Weirdest College Courses episode, you know, where we
ask listeners to tell us the weirdest college classes they've taken.
You remember this all right? Here the top three, all
of whom will be getting Part Time Genius t shirts.
The first one comes from Alicio Martinez. Uh. The class
was called Math in Square Dancing. Yeah, I thought this
(02:48):
is awesome. It's taught at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois.
And I don't know how anyone hadn't really thought about
how to combine to universally love things, you know, math
and square dancing. It's pretty great, all right, I like that,
So you'll be getting one Alicio. Now Yvonne Jones a
class called Goldberg's Cannon Making Whoopee at Baits College. This
is great. It's about all about the lifetime work of
(03:10):
Whoopee Goldberg. That's such a good class, alright. And then
the third one from Rachel Shine, a class called snow
Skiing at Texas A and M. Now, that doesn't seem
that weird of a class, right, but as she explained,
there was no snow and there were no mountains or hills.
It was taught on astro turf and it was usually hot,
so they wore shirts and T shirts and shorts. Yeah. Great, alright,
(03:34):
So those are our top three. It's so much fun
to hear from you guys. Congrats to our winners. Remember
to keep the interesting facts coming to part time Genius
at how stuff works dot com or find us on
Facebook or Twitter. You can also call our seven fact
hotline one eight four four pt Genius. All right, let's
dive in. You know, I think we need to start
by acknowledging what a strange thing a week is. So
(03:57):
what do you mean by that? I mean, well, it's
one of those things that, honestly I hadn't thought that
much about. Before one of our terrific researchers, Autumn, pointed
it out. And that's the fact that a week is
this imperfect human created unit of time that falls in
between two units of time that nature dictates. So you
have the day dictated by Earth's rotation on the shorter side,
and then you've got the month that's roughly dictated by
(04:18):
the lunar cycle on the longer end. Yeah, it's definitely
weird and doesn't pretty much the whole world us a
seven day week now. Yeah, even in places that don't
use the Gregorian calendar, you find that they're using this too,
and and it's something that we'll talk about in a bit.
And that's how contemporary weeks are built around pivotal days.
And even though you might find the pivotal days being
different from one society to another, there's still some peak
(04:40):
that's constant and the rest of the week is built
around that. Well, we should definitely talk about why the
world settled on a seven day week, but first can
we look at why creating a unit of time that
functions between a day and a month is so problematic?
I mean, the fact is there's no way to divide
up that time evenly in a way that it recurs regularly.
A lunar cycle is twenty nine point five days long,
(05:01):
meaning that if we made all months thirty days leading
to you know, ten day weeks, we'd still be off.
It's just such a strange thing. No matter what you
propose as a replacement for the seven day week, there's
gonna be some irregularity. Yeah, and the ten day week
thing has definitely been tried plenty of times. Yeah, it
was interesting to get a refresh on this during our
research and to see how earlier societies tried to address
(05:22):
the irregularities. In some they just solve the issue, kind
of how we do with leap ears, Like the ancient
Greeks had these ten day periods and occasionally they just
be nine days long to make the adjustments. Yeah, and
at first glance, you think that using a ten day
or a five day week could more closely pull off
an even division of the lunar month, you know, more
so than our seven day weeks. And and that's true,
(05:42):
but then you have another problem. Oh yeah, this is fascinating.
You're talking about temporal regularity. Yeah, exactly, so. Evianta Zerobabel
he's the author of a book called The Seven Day Circle,
and he talks about how temporal regularity is such an
important part of the development of human race. And as
he puts it, quote, imagine, for example, having to cancel
regular Sunday family gatherings or Tuesday classes every month or
(06:05):
so due to the lack of a Sunday or a
Tuesday on that particular week. I guess it's kind of
similar to what leaplings have to deal with, you know,
those people who are born on February twenty nine, except
it would happen far more regularly, and it also be
so much more inconvenient. Oh definitely. I mean, imagine how
difficult it would be to coordinate activities that should happen
more than monthly, but less than daily. I mean, right now,
(06:26):
it's just so easy to remember something like, you know,
I've got soccer practice on Tuesdays or something like that.
I mean, there'd be some clear adjusting there. But as
Zara Babo points out, it's one thing to think about
the weekdays tethered disport or hobby, but it gets even
more important when you're thinking about it for basic survival.
Like let's say you have to ride to town A
couple of times a month just to get provisions from
(06:47):
the farmer's market. If it takes you two hours to
get to town, you definitely want to be sure that
when you get there the market's open. So knowing that
the markets on Wednesdays takes care of that and and
allows you to make plans. Yeah, I mean it makes
a lot of sense, and it's weird that we don't
often stop to think about it. I mean, the week
is the longest unit of time that's not at all
dependent on nature. So it's pretty significant as far as
(07:08):
a philosophical shift in our development. And in a way,
it's like our way of saying that we're ready to
stop solely depending on nature and instead begin to establish
our temporar rhythms around a unit that we created. And
it is worth noting that there's no compelling evidence of
any major seven day biological processes in nature. I mean,
there does appear to be a form of algae that's
(07:29):
used to study circadian rhythm because it has exhibited signs
of some seven day biological rhythms, but it's a bit
of a stretch to think that it's played into how
we think about time in any real way. Yeah, that
definitely sounds like a stretch. Al Right, well, let's talk
about the creation of the seven day week. I know
you did some digging into this with a ton of
great help from our research or autumn, So tell us
what you know. Sure, well, this can actually be its
(07:51):
own episode because it's an interesting history. But to boil
it down, it was really the result of early Jewish
cultures and Babylonian astronomy thinking up. So let me plane.
As you know, Judaism was focused on a seven day cycle,
as depicted in the Torah, you know, seventh day of
rest and all that, and and the other six days
were really just days leading up to the Sabbath. Then
you have the Babylonians, who had come up with the
(08:12):
idea that the seven celestial bodies that moved across the sky,
that they had certain effects on everything humans did. Five
of these were planets as we know them now, and
and the other two were the sun in the moon,
but still seven. So the Babylonians they also had a
seven day cycle. No, I mean, at least there's no
evidence of that. But here's how they came together. In
the second century b C. The Alexandrians brought together three
(08:34):
beliefs that were pretty firm at that point. The first
was you've got these seven planets which came into particular order,
and then you had the twenty four hour day. And
third there's this idea that the planet that ruled the
first hour of each day ruled the entire day. It
didn't take too long for the set of beliefs to
run smack dab into Judaism, and the two sets of
beliefs sanked up by the end of the first century
(08:55):
see the Sabbath again, the only day that really mattered
to the Jewish cycle, and the day of Saturn, just
one of the seven planets in Babylonian astrology, were one
and the same, And by the third centuries the week
was pretty widespread. Yeah, and the and the seven day
cycle stuck and was gradually adopted by pretty much everyone.
Though this isn't to say that there weren't a couple
(09:16):
of pretty big attempts to implement different systems. I was
actually curious to see who tried to come up with
better systems over time, and found a couple of good
stories that, to be honest, I had actually forgotten about
from history class, Like what, all right, well, let's start.
Let's start with the French Republicans after the French Revolution.
During the revolution, assembly members decided to come up with
a new calendar, still with twelve months, but they wanted
(09:38):
to make the other time units as close to metric
as they could. So each month had three ten day weeks.
Each day would have ten hours divided into a hundred
minutes each, and each minute would have a hundred seconds.
I mean, it's actually so confusing to think about this.
Then there would be five or six days left at
the end of the year that would be reserved for
a celebration. It is interest thing to note that this
(10:00):
system is very similar to what the Egyptians had created
when they became the first civilization to create weeks, which
is all super interesting and I so want to get
into time machine and witnessed the celebrations. It sounds really fun.
But you can see how that structure it could make
sense if it's what people have been used to. But
given that they were used to a seven day calendar
with twenty four hours per day, it was probably pretty
confusing why they even attempt this. But there were a
(10:23):
couple of reasons. I mean that the Biggie beyond just
being a more rational system. As they saw it, it it
was that they wanted this very real new beginning, you know,
kind of a break from the past. And obviously that
didn't last forever. So how long did it last? Round
honestly find it surprising that it lasted as long as
it did. It was around twelve years, and it was
just too confusing for everyone, especially because so many refused
(10:44):
to stop keeping track of the old calendar. Even find
reports that when newspapers were required by a lot equipped
publishing the old date alongside the new one, people were
still using the old calendar to keep track of certain
important dates, and of course to observe their holy days,
and many of them would take that day of rest
along with the scheduled day of rest, and ultimately there
(11:05):
were just too many days with little significance in between
these anchor days, and so finally it was scrapped. I
still confused that I lasted over a decade, and it
makes me think about the attempts over the years to
get Americans to convert to the metric system, like a
system that actually makes a lot of sense, but it's
just way too hard to get people to move from
something they're used to especially if they don't see it
as broken. And obviously that change was like politically loaded.
(11:28):
But um, you were talking about the French, but you
said there was another attempt. Yeah, that's right. So they
were also the Soviets, and they tried to change things
up in nineteen nine. And this was really more of
an effort to increase production from the workforce. I don't
know if you know this, but the Soviets were kind
of big on this idea of getting more out of
the workfloor. I heard that. And as they saw at
the regular seven day week left machines and workers idle
(11:51):
for two out of every seven days. And that's just
not efficient as they saw it. I'll warn you it
is pretty crazy what they tried to do. I'm ready
for all right. So they created these five day weeks
and sets of six to get these thirty day months
and months that had thirty one days. Well, they just
made that another work day, which is so Soviet, and
(12:11):
that part so far you can follow. But the workers
would have one out of every five days off. And
here's where it gets a little crazy, all right. So
instead of having some big anchor day like the sabbath
or a weekend, they just assigned one of the five
days to each person as their personal day off. Each
day was then assigned a color, and then people were
assigned a color and a number, and the corresponding color
(12:34):
was your That sounds so confused. I told you it's crazy.
So did uh? Families are groups of friends, like, did
they all get the same day off? No? And that
was a big problem. If you look at people's address books,
you'd see people having to keep up with when their
loved ones days off were, and they have to write
their colors next to each of their names. It was
just so, so so confusing. Yeah, I'm not that organized,
(12:56):
and it's not surprising. Why why this wouldn't have lasted?
I mean people couldn't have their worship days together, which
I guess matters less to the Soviets, but also you
know what about just getting your family together and playing sports? Yeah,
you're right, it was. It was a big problem. So
even though a year after it launched, the state was
claiming that nearly three fourths of the workers were on
this continual production week, it still didn't sit well with
(13:18):
people because their families and social circles they were being
broken up. But did it meet their goal like, did
it increase production? Well, that was one of the nails
in the coffin to it. It actually didn't really increase production,
or at least not by much. Machines were wearing out
and they couldn't be fixed because they didn't have off days,
and it was tough on workers. So Stalin then decided
(13:38):
to put the plan on hold until all the issues
could be worked out. And you know, you think they
would just go back to the seven day week, but nope,
not the Soviets. They they couldn't accept the idea of
going back to that, so they decided on a sixth
day week instead, and everyone had the same day off
at least, but it was still nearly impossible to get
everyone in rule areas to follow this new calendar. So
(14:00):
by around nineteen or so, the Soviets were back to
the seven day week, which sounds exhausting and try explaining
and I actually think I need a break for a quiz.
But we decided to do this episode on the best
day of the week. We were both reminded of this
terrific book by Melissa Hecksher. It was called Be Safe,
Simple Strategies for Death Free Living, and we were fortunate
(14:23):
enough to get Melissa on the line to answer a
few questions about our favorite parts of her book. Melissa,
Welcome to Part Time Genius. Hi, thanks for having me on. Awesome. So, Melissa,
before we dive into specifics, I was curious, how did
the book idea come to you? Were you always just
worried about the possible ways you could die? Actually kind of,
I'm sort of one of those people that worries about everything, So,
(14:45):
you know, when when it came to me, I was
living in New York City at the time and doing
a lot of driving and traveling by train and subway,
and I just was always wondering every time I got
on the subway what car I should get onto. Should
I be in the back of the subway or middle
of the subway, you know? Or when I was driving
to and from Philadelphia, where my parents live, I always
(15:06):
wondered whether I should be in the middle lane or
the right lane, or these small choices that we make
every day to stay safe. And I was always thinking
about it. So I wanted to do a little more
research to find out the answers to those questions. And
wasn't it Salvador Dolly that used to like to ride
in the front car so that he would get there earlier,
get there first. The front car actually is the safest
(15:28):
because it's where usually the conductor is. All right, well,
you know this episode is on the best day of
the week, or asking the question what is the best
day of the week. And of course we thought about
you because several of your your entries in this great
book have to do, you know, with the best day
of doing certain things, so we thought we'd ask you
about a few of those. So, I know you mentioned
in the book the safest time to go to the bank,
(15:50):
So tell us when that is. The safest time to
go to the bank? Is really between Tuesday and Thursday, um,
in the afternoon, because historically bank robberies seem to happen
on Fridays, and people think that's because that's pay day.
So I guess the bank robbers assumed the bank is
going to have so much more money on Friday. That's
(16:11):
that's just when most bank robberies happen. So if you
want to avoid them, to stay away from the bank
on Friday morning because they also usually happen in the morning. Yeah,
how about the best day to order sushi? I love sushi,
so this one was important to me, especially because I
around when I was writing the book is when I
got pregnant, so I was extra careful with things like sushi.
(16:32):
Um So, the best time to get sushi is on Friday,
and that's because most fish markets are closed on Sundays.
So you definitely don't want to get sushi on a
Monday because the chances are that it hasn't it's not
a fresh delivery, so you're not getting the freshest fish
that way, which means that you have a greater chance
of possibly getting sick from that fish. Oh that's interesting.
(16:54):
It makes a lot of sense though when you say that. Well,
here's one that wasn't on a specific day, but you
addressed in a book the safest month to get elective surgery,
and I thought this one was super interesting. It is interesting,
um the safest most most residents graduate in June, and
so they start at their new positions at a hospital
in July. Um So, the safest month is actually June
(17:18):
because the older residents that have been there all year
and they know the system, they know the routine, they
know their peers, they've been there all year. Whereas in July. Um.
They're new and so not to say that they can't
do their jobs, but they maybe don't know that they're
not used to working together. There might be a few
more mistakes or errors that happened in July than than
happen in June. So if you can help it, schedule
(17:40):
your surgery closer to you know, maybe May or June
and not July or August. There are a few parts
of the book that weren't related to specific days, but
we're just so fun that we want to ask you
about them. So he tells what's the safest room in
a hotel? This one was a personal one for me too,
because I did a lot of traveling by myself, so
I always was a little bit worried. Is to the
(18:01):
safest place to stay, especially as a woman alone, And
the answer to that question is between the fourth and
seventh floors, if you have a choice, if it's a
high rise hotel, and in no matter what kind of
a hotel, near the elevator. And that's just because there's
more foot traffic and so you're safer being around a
lot of people, because if someone's going to break into
your hotel room or approach you as you're entering your room.
(18:23):
It's less likely to happen where there's a lot of traffic.
And then as far as the floors, most fire ladders
don't reach above seven floors, So if you had to
be evacuated in the case of emergency, if you're on
a really high floor. First, it's obviously it's going to
take you longer to get down if you're doing stairs.
But um, if you had to be evacuated by fire ladder,
be harder because the ladders don't always go that high.
(18:46):
So fourth and seven floors near the elevator, and that's
pretty much the safest place you can be. I think
I need to change my strategy. Actually, when I get
to a hotel, I often request a room away from
the elevator just because it's noisy there. But I didn't
realize how unsafe it was. Well, you know, it's a
trade off. So you want a quiet room and you
might not be as safe, but you can sleep better. Yeah,
(19:08):
all right, Well, there was one other that I that
I saw here that I thought was just really interesting,
and so, so, what is the safest stall in a
public restroom? What's interesting about this question is that there's
a lot of studies that have looked at this question. Um,
there's scientists that have actually collected samples from bathrooms to
just to figure out which stall is the dirtiest. And um,
(19:29):
the safest stall has been determined to be the first
one or the one closest to the door, and that's
because most people like a little bit of privacy when
they go to the bathroom, so they go a little
further from the door. Um, the dirtiest one turned out
to be the middle stall. Um, which if you think
it would be the furthest from the door, but it's
actually the middle and the safest, least jermy room stall
(19:52):
is um, the one closest to the door, and it's
usually also the one with the most toilet paper, so bonus.
It's not surprising that there would have been several studies
on this because I think it is something that everyone
who's walked into a restroom has thought this before, right, right,
besides that jerk that walks out without washing his hands. Well,
(20:13):
this is terrific. You know, this has always been a
book that we've we've enjoyed flipping through and reading, even
though it's been out for some time now. So I
hope all our listeners will check out be Safe Simple
Strategies for Death Free Living. Melissa, thanks so much for
joining us on part Time Genius. Thank you so much
for having me. Welcome back to part Time Genius. Before
(20:43):
the break, we were talking about the attempts by the
French and Soviets and others in history to move away
from the seven day week to other systems that we're
seen is maybe more logical. It's really interesting to see
how they all failed. I mean, what would you say
is the baseline reason none of them panned out? Well,
there was obviously a big problem with the reason in
these new systems were put in place to begin with.
I think they all underestimated just how disorienting the new
(21:06):
structures would be. Let me think about it. When you
change up the length of a week, you throw off
someone's social rhythm. I mean, what day of the week
do I go to the market. You throw off their
personal rhythm. So you know, they were working six days
in a row and then got a day of rest,
and now they have to work nine before they get
a day arrest. And then, maybe most importantly, you throw
off their religious rhythm. You know, people were used to
worshiping on Sundays and now suddenly Sundays don't even really
(21:29):
exist anymore. So it's just way too confusing and frustrating
and frankly upsetting for these people. Well, and when you
consider the Soviets, it feels like there was something even
bigger going on. By dividing time into five different calendars,
they were really creating five different societies, all randomly assigned. Yeah,
and all of this really threw off that temporal harmony
that Zaibabel talks about. And we can't underestimate the role
(21:51):
of religion here. Think about how important a designated weekly
holy day is for each of the major religions. You know,
the Jews set themselves apart by established the Sabbath early on.
Christians were actually observing both as they were Jews and Christians,
and they were observing the Sabbath on Saturdays and then
their own day, which became Sunday, and eventually they just
(22:11):
focused on Sunday in order to differentiate themselves. Yeah, and
we see this with Muslims as well, with Muhammad choosing
Fridays as the Muslim holy day exactly. And with all
that set so firmly and stone, it's hard to see
ever moving away from the seven day week at this point.
All right, well that is some fascinating stuff, but I
think it's time that we fast forward several centuries and
get to the big question of the day, and that is,
(22:33):
you know, what are the best and worst days of
the week? Well, why don't we start with the worst?
And it didn't take Garfield telling us to guess what
day most people think was the worst day of the
week Mondays? But why Mondays? And what does science have
to say about this? You're reminding me earlier about that
a great Kathy Benjamin Peace over at Mental Flaws, and
I think it was called something like six scientific reasons
(22:54):
why Mondays are the worst? So why don't we start
with that? Why don't we talk about that one for
a minute? Sure? Well, one big that shouldn't chock us
is if we think back to our sleep episode, weekends
really throw off our sleep patterns. I mean, it's funny
because every time we go through a daylight savings time change,
everyone complains about our body clocks being thrown off, But
most of us are doing this to ourselves every single weekend.
(23:15):
Like we think we're doing ourselves a favor when we
catch up on sleep, But in fact, we're just making
it that much harder to wake up on Monday morning.
Our body clocks are much more sensitive than we realize,
and staying up a couple of hours later and sleeping
a couple hours later like that all throws us off
a little once again, sleep is so annoying? All right, Well,
what else did Benjamin say? Well? She also talks about
the fact that because we often eat and drink and
(23:37):
generally indulge more over the weekends, people tend to feel
worse about themselves on Monday. They have even been studies
of women to confirm that they feel less attractive on
Mondays because of the weekend indulging, and it's part of
why people are more likely to start dieting on Mondays
than any other day, which does make sense. And what's
also interesting is that people actually are less healthy on Mondays.
As Benjamin writes, scientists have found that even people who
(24:00):
generally maintain their weight way the most at the beginning
of the week. Mondays are also the most common day
for people to suffer heart attacks and strokes. Even if
you don't end up in the hospital, your blood pressure
is higher on Monday, as is your chance of getting
sick in general. Wow, and doesn't she talk about people
just not liking their jobs as well. Yeah, there have
been a lot of polls showing that the strong majority
(24:21):
of people are not big fans of their jobs, or
at least not that inspired by them. This is why
you often see people experiencing feelings of depression or anxiety
on Sunday evenings. They just don't want to go back
to work. So the evidence really is stacking up against
Mondays and I guess we shouldn't be shocked by this. Well,
that may be true, but there's another part to it
that may be the most interesting, and that's the fact
(24:41):
that if you actually study people's moods throughout the work week,
you don't necessarily find that they were feeling that much
worse on Mondays than you know, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday.
But then if you ask them to recall their moods
and their stress levels, they almost always report Mondays is
being consistently worse. So a big part of it is
that we're telling ourselves on Mondays are the worst. It
is interesting and I've actually been reading a little about
(25:03):
this too, and that's where because we believe that Mondays
are harder and more stressful and generally bluer than other days.
We then retrofit our memories of Mondays to fit that expectation,
So we mentally exaggerate some of the worst things we
remember about Mondays to represent the entirety of Mondays. Our
brains are pretty tricky, and as our researcher Autumn said
in one of our conversations, the Monday blues are a
(25:26):
form of social organization. Yeah, And and just to be clear,
it's not as though there aren't bad things about Monday.
We talked about some of those. It's just that there's
definitely a bit of a placebo effect going on here,
and we exaggerate and we generalize certain memories and expectations
about Mondays. All right, Well, then if we tend to
view Mondays is worse even though we don't necessarily actually
always feel worse on Mondays, would you say there's a
(25:47):
day that could rival Monday for the worst? Oh? Definitely.
There have been a couple of studies to show that
our moods may actually reach their lower points on Wednesdays.
Part of this might be because we're feeling pretty overwhelmed
at work, and it's when we're the first is the
way from a weekend on both it's you know, before
or after? All Right, Well, I feel like that's enough
of the sad talk, so let's get to the best
day of the weekend before we get to the science
(26:07):
of it. I'm curious, what's your favorite day of the week?
Mango months, Tuesday, Tuesday? And why Tuesday. It's because I
was born on a Tuesday, so I started paying attention
to them. But then I don't know, like all the
anxiety of Sunday and Monday is over and they're low expectations,
and I don't know, there's a full week ahead. It
feels like, oh, that's nice. How about you? I think
(26:29):
that's probably safe Fridays because you know, I have a
busy week. We have all our recording on Tuesdays and Thursdays,
and I love doing that. Friday's is kind of a
day where we get to plan for the weeks ahead,
think about future episodes, and then of course the weekend
is ahead, you know, So it's nice. I think those
are my favorites. But but what do the studies say? Well,
several studies show Saturday is the winner. It's the day
(26:50):
where people feel they're free to do, you know, what
they want with their time, at least more than other days,
and they know they've got a whole other day of
weekend ahead of them. Except for the most part, people
tend to experience that to Day's is better, both in
terms of their actual moods and how they remember their moods. Well,
I mean that said, don't you think there's still a
little bit of the reverse Monday effect going on with Saturday's? Definitely.
(27:10):
So while we do tend to actually feel better on Saturday's,
we also tend to look back at our weekends with
rosier glasses than we do our working time, and we
tend to underestimate how rewarded we are by our work
if we enjoy what we do. So, yeah, there's a
bit of cultural bias going on there. All right, Well
what about Friday's. Yeah, this is probably why Friday's bring
the highest mood of the work week. We're excited about
(27:30):
the weekend, which we believe will be better than the
work week. I mean, there's an entire restaurant chain named
after the concept, t J I Friday's with some of
those chicken fingers. Well, before you go running off with
some honeymustard covered chicken. We should probably play a quick quiz,
and then I want to hear about the facts he
found about the days we haven't said much about. All Right,
I think I can wait for that. So who do
(27:56):
we have on the line today, Mango, Today, we've got
a very special guest, the owner of a one a
full comic bookstore in Baltimore, Guerrilla King Comics, Ian Sayer.
Welcome to Part time Genius. Thank you well. Just before
we get started, we wanted to say we love the
intro to your store on your site, and I'm just
gonna read it here for our listeners. It says here
at Guerrilla King Comics, we believe that sequential art is
(28:17):
the highest form of storytelling. We believe that gaily clad
muscle men should pummel each other in the streets with
lamp posts and other large objects. It's their right and
it's their privilege. We believe that if comics are religion,
then your friendly local comic bookshop should be like a church.
We want to be your weird comics church. It's just
(28:38):
such a warm and welcoming intro. Well, that's how I
feel about comics. It's it's it's as simple as that,
you know, I mean, comics are the religious experience for me,
and like Wednesdays might samit, you know, So today's show
is about days of the weekend. Comic book stores have
Wednesdays of super special day. Can you tell us what
(28:58):
happens on that day? Yeah, I mean Wednesday is a
new comic book day. If you love comics and look
forward to reading the next one after you just for
the last one, Wednesday is your day. Imagine if you
could only watch TV like one day week, you know
what I mean, Like that would be like you're awesome
TV day, Like this is that way for comics. So
is there anything unusual or super fun about the rhythm
(29:21):
of the day. There's a lot, I mean, you know,
it's it's it's the busiest day. There's a lot of
print forward on Tuesday. Most people that are regulars, they
keep they keep a pullish for us, meaning we we
take all their books every week and set them aside
and bagging board them for them and they can just
come in and they won't sell out. I see the
same people every week, and that I love these people,
(29:43):
like we have this one guy. Have you ever seen
the whole Chris party routine where he's interviewing people and
he asked them like a simple yes or no question.
Like he's interviewing comic part and he's like remember that
part of the song where you said love to take
people to the love you made? Yeah, and he's like, oh,
that was great. All of this, all these like answers,
they're like, yeah, that was greatful. Like we have this
(30:04):
one guy who'll come in and just be like remember
that time that me they's always say in the stewards
and he came out of the sewers and they killed
different body outside of the sewers and its closed were
all ripped up. It's like there'll be a best school
read like, yeah, I remember that and he's like, yeah,
that was awesome. And he's like and like, I don't know,
it is awesome. Like I missed these guys over the
course of the week, and then they come in and
it's like, I'm saying, so fantastic, And I have to
(30:26):
know do you sneak a peek at comics that come
in on Tuesdays or do you wait it out to
enjoy it with your customers? Don't no way, I read
them as soon as I go home. And have an
uninterrupted hour. It doesn't really even feel like sneaking a peek.
The way that um Our orders are set up, you
kind of have to. If they're going to reorder comics,
it's really good. You can only do it before a
(30:47):
certain time on Wednesdays. We have to like immediately read them.
Like you know, if like say, you know, Storm is
having a baby and you didn't know about it, and
everybody's gonna want to reorder that book, you gotta reorder
it immediately. So yeah, so you kind of have to
read the books as soon as they're out. All right.
So what's the game called today, Mango? It's called Name
that day, that's right. So we'll be providing you with
(31:08):
a word bank of several days of the week. Now.
These include Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. We
have intentionally left off Tuesday, so please don't guess Tuesday.
Now we're gonna ask you a few questions and see
how many you can answer, and just so you know,
some of the answers repeat. All right, are you ready
to get started? Okay? Question number one. The nickname hump
(31:30):
Day was allegedly given to this day in n when
Roy Man coined the phrase at a DuPont water cooler.
What day are we talking about? I think Wednesday? Yea
one for one question number two. Nachos went mainstream after
Howard Costell commented on a tasty new snack he was
eating during this night football. What night are we talking about? Monday?
(31:53):
M hmm, that's right. Number three. This day was the
day of the Last Supper. It's also Thor's day, and
just in case you're trying to picture him, Thor is
the one whose chariot is driven by goats. Abe was
kind of a beginning. But if that's right? Three for three?
Number four, This Adams family daughter is called Little Wanda
(32:14):
and Brazil. What day of the week are we talking about?
What day? Whoa so so? Ian's already four for four?
Let's see if you can get a perfect score here.
Number five. This day gets the dubious honor of both
having an ice Cube movie and a Rebecca Black song
named for it. What day of the week are we
talking about? Definitely Friday? Five for five and the last
(32:37):
question number six And because you like comic art, the
Bengals weren't the only chart topping band to sing about
this manic Day of the Week. The Chippetts Alvin and
the Chipmunks Lady Friends also covered the song what Day
did They sing About? Monday? Classic? Alright, so fun want
to tell him how he did Mango? So ians Gordon
astounding six for six, he ran the tables and he'll
(33:00):
be going home with our very top prize. A handwritten
note singing our praises to his mom or boss congratulations.
I think what welcome back to part time genius. All right,
(33:22):
So we've talked a lot about Mondays and Saturdays, and
a little about Wednesdays and Fridays, but I think we
need to show some love to the other days as well.
Why don't you tell us a few facts that you
found about each one? All right, let's do it. And
I know we need to talk about the others, but
I've got a couple more Monday facts here that I
wanted to share. Alright, So Monday is the safest day
of the week to have surgery. Hopefully you'll remember to
(33:43):
show up because it's also the day with the most
missed medical appointments. It's also the best day to apply
for a job, meaning that a higher percentage of people
who submit applications on Mondays and to advance to the
next stage than any other day. So Mondays are redeemed
a bit. What about Tuesday's, Well, Tuesday is the day
for getting stuff done in more ways than one. It's
the most productive day at work, according to multiple studies,
(34:06):
and this is in spite of or or maybe because of,
the fact that it's also the day with the highest
email volume. It's the most popular day for exercise, and
it's apparently the best day to day trade. I know
you've been talking about getting into day trading, Mango, right,
so maybe you can stop making Tuesday one of our
recording days. You can just focus on your day trade. Okay,
(34:26):
good call, All right, Oh but wait, actually, here's another
study that showed Wednesdays have the highest returns and lowest
volatility on the stock market. So maybe we'll let you
focus on your stocks that day too. But you know,
all this despite the fact that, as we discussed, it
tends to be the worst day mood wise, according to
some studies. And what about Thursdays, Well, contrary to what
(34:46):
most people think, it's Thursday's, not Tuesdays that are best
for buying airline tickets, and that's a big So let's
just focus on that for Thursdays. Friday is the worst
day to have surgery and the likeliest day to get fired.
But you know, hey, we're excited about the weekend, so
who cares. Saturday is the day you're likeliest to die
in a car crash. But the good news is that
you should just fly because Saturday sees the fewest flight delays.
(35:10):
It's also the likeliest to inspire songwriting. That is, if
you take the Christian hymns out of the equation, it
has the greatest number of day of the week songs
in the Amazon database. And finally, Sundays are the best
day to get out on one of those long day
trip car rides because it's the day with the fewest
road passengers. All Right, So there's some really good facts
in there, and it's a shame use so many of
(35:31):
them up because you know what's next. Oh don't worry,
I've got some good ones for the part time genius
fact off. Okay, well, why don't you kick us off? Then?
All right? Well, when I started the show about a
(35:52):
story on manic Monday, I decided to hold off on
sharing one bit. Do you I need to read the
lyrics again, Well, did you know that Prince actually he
wrote that song and it hit number two on the charts.
And the only reason that didn't hit number one another
Prince written song, one he wrote for himself. Kiss. So,
for the first twenty six years of her existence, Wednesday
Adams and the rest of her family didn't have names.
(36:14):
The Adams Family creator finally gave the family members names
for the nineteen sixties TV show, and her name reportedly
came from the nursery rhyme Wednesday's child is full of woe. Alright,
Well back to the topic of Monday's being a bummer.
We can't have a fact off without a Garfield fact.
So did you know that the Syndicated strip is the
Guinness World Record holder for being the world's most widely
(36:34):
syndicated strip. It's in more than hundred newspapers and other
places around the world. I've got a great Garfield fact too.
Did you ever notice as a kid that the voice
of Garfield and all the TV specials in the eighties
was the same voice as Peter Bankman from the animated
show The Real Ghostbusters. I did. I Actually I knew
it was the same person because I could hear it,
I didn't know who it was. Yeah, it's a guy
(36:56):
named Lorenzo Music, but that's not really my fact. Turns
out he's not the only one who to have voiced
both characters. The other one is a little more famous.
Bill Murray, of course, was the original Peter Bankman, but
he was also the voice of Garfield and Garfield the
movie back in two thousand four. Oh nice, all right.
One of my favorite Rolling Stones songs, Ruby Tuesday, was
written by Keith Richards about his girlfriend Linda Keith. Apparently
(37:19):
Linda had ditched Richards for Jimmy Hendricks and got into
some drugs, and he tried to win her back and
even got her parents involved, telling them that she was
not doing well. I think, you know, when Keith Richards
is trying to intervene, it may be time to come back.
But it didn't go well, and they didn't speak again
for many years. And I'd love to do an interview
with her, not about Keith Richards, because I just want
(37:39):
to know how she feels about the fact that by
the Transitive property there's also a giant restaurant chain with
a big old salad bar named after her. So speaking
of family, restaurant chains. Did you know that T G
I Fridays may seem like a family establishment made for
Middle America, but it actually started out as a singles
bar in Manhattan's Upper East Side in the mid sixties.
This per fume salesman named Alan Stillman felt like there
(38:02):
wasn't a good bar in the area that both men
and women felt comfortable at, so he bought a bar
on sixty three first and renamed it T G A. Friday's,
and the rest is history. We've got to hear this quote,
Stillman told Edible Geography. My timing was exquisite because I
opened T J I Friday's the exact year the pill
was invented. I happened to hit the sexual revolution on
the head, and the result was that, without really intending it,
(38:24):
I became the founder of the first singles bar. WoT
I can't hate that one, MAGA. The trophy is yours. Congratulations,
Thank you, thank you, and thank you out there for listening.
Listen to you next time. Thanks again for listening. Part
(38:49):
Time Genius is a production of how stuff works and
wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people who do the
important things. We couldn't even begin to understand. Christa McNeil
does the editing thing. Noel Brown made the themes long
and does the MIXI mixy sounding. Jerry Rowland does the
exact producer thing. Gabeluesier is our lead researcher, with support
from the research army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and
Lucas Adams and Eves. Jeff Cook gets the show to
(39:11):
your ears. Good job, Eves. If you like what you heard,
we hope you'll subscribe, And if you really really like
what you've heard, maybe you could leave a good review
for us. Do we do? We forget Jason? Jason who
Part-Time Genius News
Hosts And Creators
Will Pearson
Mangesh Hattikudur
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