‘The thing that goes ping’ is shifting Monday Blues to Sunday Scaries – The Wall Street Journal

Those among us who are Monty Python fans may remember the hospital sketch with 'The Machine that goes Ping". Now, we are all in possession of one of those and the machines that go "ping", that so thrilled 'The meaning of Life' cast are ruling our lives. You could change the ping to a song or whatever takes your fancy; turn the sound to a buzz or even silence it, but we all know that it is there waiting to be brought to life with messages that need to be opened, requiring action. By Sunday night, we all succumb to the machine with the ping due to natural curiosity or duty and take a look at our Inboxes, Slack, WhatsApp or Telegram messages. Ok, if there are some of you who can now proudly say, 'not me, I am Zen and have just developed the equivalent of the Headspace app', you probably sit it out until Monday morning. The effect of the omnipresent ping machines is that the familiar Monday Blues that hit most of us when we have to return to the daily grind, now settles in on Sunday night. Workers switch into work mode on Sunday instead of Monday. It is called job creep or the Sunday Scaries in the US and in this Wall Street Journal article, experts warn it is leading to burnout. – Linda van Tilburg