Causal Fridays
By: David Bradley Isenberg
Tags: Philosophy, Work, Satire, Humor, Company Culture

Image by Christina Morillo on Pexels

Dear Employees,

Here at Aetna, we hope to foster a positivist office environment. And while we have taken great joy in the relaxed atmosphere of Casual Fridays, we are sad to report that we must terminate it due to excessive amounts of malaise-induced fainting. That is why we are excited to announce our new Friday policy, Causal Fridays.

What is Causal Fridays? Well, starting next week, actions that employees take will serve a contingent purpose that necessarily leads to a tangible effect. Causal Fridays will give you, the preening masses of employees, a hard-earned sense of logic-based consequentialism. In other words, on Fridays, what you do matters.

On Causal Fridays, no meeting could have been an email. Research will yield measurable results, and deadlines will be met. Water cooler conversation about “hanging out sometime” will lead to actually hanging out sometime. You will have to go paint-balling with Derek if you bring it up on Causal Fridays, Jerry.

Aetna would also like to announce that starting immediately, all government lobbying and public relations will be rescheduled to Causal Fridays.

However, because of this new policy, Aetna is required to disclose that during the other four days of the week, your work life will exist in a liminal purgatory of ceaseless futility.

We’re sure that all of you have many questions, such as, “So does this mean that my life is meaningless every other day of the week?” That depends. Roman philosopher Avicenna defined “being” into three categories: necessary, impossible, and contingent qua possible. Think of every Causal Friday as your work creating a contingent qua possible ontology through cause and effect. On Causal Fridays, the fruits of your labors happen necessarily because of your labor. The other four days of the week, the fruits of your labor either exist out of necessity, or they do not out of impossibility, depending on your pre-existing, epistemological can-do attitude!

We hope that clears things up.

Let’s say you stayed up late Thursday night working on a market research report you’ve been drafting for months. We love your hustle and determination to burn that midnight oil! But because of our new company policy, only the work you did for it on a Causal Friday will lead to company growth or any form of personal or professional utility. The other four-fifths of your work are ateleological drivel.

However, we wrote this policy last Tuesday, which means that, in a retroactive paradox of time, because it wasn’t written on a Causal Friday, the policy is not producing the cost-savings we anticipated. So unfortunately, Aetna will be forced to end our generous employee benefits. The good thing is that, when you do go to work sick, whatever it is you do Monday-Thursday doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you show up and feign some hollow performance of fruitless labor, or we’ll fire you.

As Descartes said, “I ping, therefore I circle back.” So please, go out and enjoy Causal Friday. You counterfactually earned it.

Warm regards,

George W. Bush

Head of Human Resources, Aetna