"‘Tracker’ Relocating To Los Angeles For Season 4 With $48M California Tax Credit"/ "‘The Hunting Party’ Canceled By NBC After 2 Seasons, Will Be Shopped"

May 4, 2026 "‘Tracker’ Relocating To Los Angeles For Season 4 With $48M California Tax Credit": Today I found this article by Nellie Andreeva on Deadline:

EXCLUSIVE: One of the biggest shows on television is relocating to Los Angeles with the biggest California tax credit for a series to date. 

CBS‘ Tracker, starring Justin Hartley, will move from Vancouver, where the first three seasons were shot. 

Its studio 20th Television is currently locking down production facilities in and around L.A., 

with filming on Season 4 slated to begin in late June.

While the relocation decision was just recently finalized, it had been in the works for awhile. 

It was telegraphed when the California Film Commission in March 

unveiled the latest round of TV tax credits 

to 16 new and returning series and pilots 

under the state’s $750 million incentives program. 

There was one relocating show on the list, code named “Untitled Disney Entertainment Television Project 13,” which was awarded an eye-popping $48M on $129M in qualified expenditures. 

(20th Television is part of Disney Television Studios, itself a division of DET.)

Deadline can reveal that the show is Tracker, 20th Television’s biggest series to be lured back to California so far. 

Its $48M tax credit eclipses 

the $42M handed to Season 3 of Amazon’s Fallout, 

which relocated from New York to Los Angeles with a tax credit for Season 2, 

and the $42.8M given to another 20th Television series, Dan Fogelman’s upcoming NFL drama The Land.

“I’m proud of what we built in Vancouver. 

I’m also very excited we’re bringing Tracker to L.A.,” 

star and executive producer Hartley said. 

“I’m looking forward to continuing to tell these stories alongside the new, fresh places we’ll be heading to next. 

Most importantly, I want to thank the fans for showing up for us every step of the way. 

We couldn’t do this without you.”

By its nature — Tracker stars Hartley as a lone-wolf survivalist who tracks down people across the U.S. for reward money — the action drama is shot primarily on location in the wilderness.

A move to California would provide the series with a change of scenery 

and an opportunity to explore new locales spanning 

a coastline, 

mountains 

and desert.

“Location is a huge part of the storytelling on Tracker,” 

executive producer and showrunner Elwood Reid said. 

“We’re so grateful to the crew and people of Vancouver who made the first three seasons of this hit drama possible, 

and are simultaneously thrilled to be able to kick off the fourth season of Tracker by filming in Los Angeles, 

thanks to the tax incentive program that supports bringing production back to California.”

Tracker‘s remote, rural locations setting would allow the series to take full advantage of the California incentives. 

TV shows can earn an additional 5% tax credit bonus 

— on top of the 35% base credit 

— for qualified expenditures incurred outside the L.A. 30-mile zone 

that covers the Greater Los Angeles area and surrounding communities.

Tax credits for relocating big-scale series like Tracker 

are being awarded for their projected outsized economic effect, 

creating jobs for L.A.-based crews 

and boosting auxiliary local businesses which have been hit hard by runaway production.

For its first two and a half seasons, Tracker was the most watched broadcast series. 

It is currently No.2 behind CBS’ new breakout drama, Marshals, 

with 16.4M Live+28 multiplatform viewers in the U.S.. 

It ranks No.7 among all series 

— network and streaming ones 

— over the 2025-26 broadcast season.

Based on the bestselling novel The Never Game by Jeffery Deaver, Tracker is set to return in the fall for its fourth season. Reid and Hartley executive produce with Ken Olin, Connie Dolphin, Sharon Lee Watson and Alex Katsnelson.

https://deadline.com/2026/05/tracker-relocating-los-angeles-season-4-tax-credit-1236879144/

Oct. 17, 2026 My opinion: I just watched the season 4 premiere today.  It was average.

Jun. 2, 2026 "‘The Hunting Party’ Canceled By NBC After 2 Seasons, Will Be Shopped": Today I found this article by Nellie Andreeva on Deadline:

The Hunting Party took the scenic route but arrived at the same destination as fellow sophomore NBC drama series Brilliant Minds: a cancellation after two seasons.

NBC sibling Universal Television, the studio behind the crime drama procedural starring Melissa Roxburgh, is expected to shop it to other outlets. Netflix, which currently licenses the show in the U.S., would be a logical outreach.

The Hunting Party, created by JJ Bailey, was the last 2025-26 broadcast series whose fate had not been determined. 

NBC postponed the decision until after the upfronts as its executives took extra time to evaluate the show’s performance on both linear and streaming.

The odds for a series left in limbo after the networks’ lineups for the following season have been locked are always long. 

Based solely on The Hunting Party’s middling linear performance, 

the drama likely would’ve been a goner a month ago.

Jeff Bader, NBCUniversal’s President of Program Planning Strategy, was pretty frank about its delivery when explaining the decision to replace The Hunting Party, 

which aired in the Thursday 10 p.m. time period behind Law & Order: SVU this season, 

with the mothership Law & Order next fall.

“We’re looking for places where we can grow the network, and that is a time period where we think we can do better,” he told Deadline last month. 

“Nothing negative about Hunting Party, but for our linear schedule, we absolutely need to try and do a little bit better there.”

However, the drama, about a team tasked with tracking down and capturing dangerous killers has done better on streaming, which prolonged its shelf life.

The Hunting Party got a shot in the arm when its first season launched on Netflix in the U.S. in February to strong viewership.

The exposure did not result in meaningful linear ratings gains on NBC for Season 2; they remained relatively flat throughout the season. 

But I hear there has been a halo effect on Peacock, where the series already had been a solid performer. 

(Netflix’s license fee as well as the show’s international sales also are bringing in revenue, which was likely weighed in against its soft linear ratings.)

With NBC and Peacock under the same programming leadership, 

both a third season on the broadcast network and a switch to The Hunting Party becoming a Peacock original were considered, 

sources said. In the end, after some number-crunching, neither option panned out.

NBC’s final 2026-27 tally is four new scripted series 

— dramas 

The Rockford Files 

and Line of Fire 

and comedies 

Sunset P.I. 

and Newlyweds 

— and three cancellations

 — dramas 

Brilliant Minds 

and The Hunting Party 

and comedy 

Stumble.

“Honestly, we have a very, very tight schedule,” Bader said last month. 

“Because we have a lot of sports, 

for our entertainment time periods, 

we had to actually give up on some shows that we really love 

to make room to launch our future potential hits. 

So we made room for four, 

we could have done with less, 

very hard for us to do more.”

https://deadline.com/2026/06/the-hunting-party-canceled-nbc-shopped-1236939365/#comments

My opinion: I like this show.  I wrote a review.

Sept. 2025 blog post:

mid -season 2025 TV show reviews

https://badcb.blogspot.com/2025/09/mid-season-2025-tv-show-reviews.html

I check the ratings of the shows, and season 2 of The Hunting Party did decrease in ratings.

The acting and writing quality was still good.

My week:

Sun. Oct. 18, 2026:

Karen I, Scarborough, Ontario, would like to know:

On average, how many hours of television do you watch per day?

1-3 hours

54.72% (2062)

More than 3 hours

34.47% (1299)

None

10.80% (407)

My opinion: 1-3 hrs.  I usually watch 1 hr of TV.

Sat. Oct. 17, 2026 Windy weather: It was so windy, you can see the tree branches moving and all these leaves blowing.

Neighborhood: This metal fence around a home construction was blown over.

I saw some street signs and pylons down. 

Haircut: I went to Chinatown to get my haircut.  I get one every 6 months.  I went there, and the wind had knocked out the electricity of the salon.  

At least there was running water to wash my hair.  She cut my hair while there was still some daylight to see.

Tues. Oct. 20, 2026 "Alberta premier pledges to honour 'remain' vote, won't have 2nd referendum on separation":

• Albertans have voted to stay in Canada, CBC News projects, rejecting the proposal to begin the separation process.
• More than 75 per cent of voters want to remain part of the country, according to the latest results.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/livestory/alberta-referendum-results-live-updates-separatism-october-19-2026-9.7387777

My opinion: I voted for Alberta to stay in Canada.  So did my little brother.  I was very happy that Alberta is staying in Canada.

"Google union pushes back on mandate ordering staffers back to the office 3 days a week"/ "Canada's tech industry experiencing shift away from remote work"

Jun. 8, 2023 "Google union pushes back on mandate ordering staffers back to the office 3 days a week": Today I found this article by Davey Alba on the Financial Post:

Google employees are pushing back against the tech giant’s mandate that staffers spend at least three days a week in the office.

“Overnight, workers’ professionalism has been disregarded in favour 

of ambiguous attendance tracking practices tied to our performance evaluations,” 

Chris Schmidt, a Google software engineer, said Thursday in a statement released by the Alphabet Workers Union, which represents some contract and direct employees at Google.

Alphabet Inc.’s Google sent an email to employees Wednesday saying the company expected most staffers to return to the office regularly.

“Not everyone believes in ‘magical hallway conversations,’ 

but there’s no question that working together in the same room makes a positive difference,”

chief people officer Fiona Cicconi wrote in the email, which was reviewed by Bloomberg.

Cicconi said many of the products unveiled in May at Google I/O, the tech company’s annual developer conference, and at its Google Marketing Live event were 

“conceived, 

developed 

and built 

by teams working side by side.”

Attendance will now be a factor in employees’ performance reviews, Cicconi said, and teams will start sending reminders to workers who are consistently absent from the office 

— barring special circumstances like the air-quality-control warning in Canada and the US East Coast this week. 

Moving forward, Google will consider new remote requests by exception only, she said.

Google previously planned to bring employees back to the office three days a week in April of last year. 

In 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the company had said that about 20 per cent of employees would be able to work remotely full time.

In January, Alphabet enacted the largest job cuts in its history, slashing more than six per cent of its workforce, or about 12,000 staffers. 

The company has also worked to reduce its real estate footprint after announcing a plan to spend US$7 billion on new offices and data centres in 2021. 

In its first-quarter earnings report in April, Alphabet said it spent US$564 million related to office-space reductions.

“Our hybrid approach is designed to incorporate 

the best of being together in person 

with the benefits of working from home 

for part of the week,” 

Ryan Lamont, a Google spokesperson, said in a statement. 

“Now that we’re more than a year into this way of working, we’re formally integrating this approach into all of our workplace policies.”

The Alphabet Workers Union says it has 1,400-plus members. Schmidt, the Google software engineer, said that a “one size fits all” return-to-office policy ignores workers’ life circumstances.

“We deserve a voice in shaping the policies that impact our lives to establish 

clear, 

transparent 

and fair working conditions for all of us,”

 Schmidt said.

Bloomberg.com

https://financialpost.com/fp-work/google-union-pushes-back-3-day-return-to-office-mandate

Sept. 6, 2023 "Canada's tech industry experiencing shift away from remote work": Today I found this article by Tara Deschamps on BNN Bloomberg:

When Heather Aleinik was laid off from Shopify Inc. last summer, it was "one of the biggest curveballs" of her career.

The now 29-year-old Calgary woman had discovered remote work was conducive to her neurodivergence and love of travel while at the Ottawa-based e-commerce company, 

which launched a remote work policy at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic 

— a policy it claimed would be permanent. 

Aleinik eventually found a new job at a software firm advertising 

a "five-year remote commitment," but just as she started to get comfortable, 

the company built a new office in Florida and its CEO started extolling the benefits of working on-site. 

She quit just before employees living near the office were ordered back three days a week.

"The idea of going back is terrifying. 

The idea of being on a bus, being in public transit and for all of it to be made mandatory 

and we don't have a choice, 

that's one of the biggest reasons why I'm fighting to stay remote," 

Aleinik said.

"People get healthier when they're at home. 

They have better relationships with their family, 

they can manage childcare."

Aleinik's experience is a sign of a shift rippling through the tech sector as employers move away from entirely remote roles and toward hybrid and in-person work arrangements.

While companies in other industries are also increasingly mandating workers back to the office at least a few days every week, 

the tech sector's shift is notable — and even shocking to some 

— because the industry was an early champion of remote work.

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, 

Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke declared 

“office centricity is over” 

and said he'd let most of his workforce remain at home on a permanent basis.

Mark Zuckerberg even hypothesized Meta, then called Facebook, 

could have half its staff working remotely within five or 10 years.

Wary of being unable to compete with big tech names 

and not wanting to disrupt workers who had grown accustomed to logging on from their kitchen table or wherever their travels took them, 

startups seemed poised to let staff work remotely forever, too.

Those arrangements are scarcer these days.

A recent report from jobs site Indeed found that out of the number of Canadians who had some form of hybrid work arrangement, 

just shy of 60 per cent were fully remote, 

down from 75 per cent a year earlier.  

"We are seeing the majority of roles that we have posted right now are hybrid 

and have a city attached to them,"

 said April Hicke, co-founder of 

Toast, a women's collective and talent organization that shares tech-focused job postings with its members.

The recent move away from purely remote jobs was 

"very, very quick and very dramatic," Hicke added, 

attributing much of the change to a ripple effect that began with big tech.

Video-conferencing pioneer Zoom asked employees who live within 80 kilometres of its offices to be on site two days a week in August.

Earlier this year, Zuckerberg prodded staff toward Meta's offices in March

, even as he announced 10,000 workers were being laid off 

and another 5,000 job postings were being cancelled as part of his "year of efficiency."

"This requires further study, but our hypothesis is that it is 

still easier to build trust in person 

and that those relationships help us work more effectively," 

he wrote in an open letter.

Data captured by Meta showed engineers who either joined the company in-person 

and then transferred to remote 

or remained in-person 

performed better on average than people who joined remotely. 

Engineers earlier in their career perform better on average when they work in-person with teammates at least three days a week, 

the company also concluded.

Other firms have touted office and hybrid work as builders of camaraderie 

and made it clear that career advancement at their companies depend on in-person interactions.

IBM chief executive Arvind Krishna, for example, told Bloomberg in May 

he’s not forcing workers back to the office yet 

but said those who stick to remote work 

would find it difficult to get promoted, 

especially into managerial roles.

Amazon's Andy Jassy appears to agree. The chief executive reportedly told staff in late August “it’s probably not going to work out” for those who won't return to an office.

But getting workers back to the office should be about 

collaboration 

rather than career advancement, 

said Marta Max. 

The executive operations manager at Nanoleaf, a Toronto-based smart home technology company, tells staff that facetime does not equal more or fewer promotions.

Nanoleaf asks engineering product staff to be in on Mondays and Thursdays, 

while sales and marketing workers visit the office on Wednesdays.

"We got to the point where we actually figured let's make some days mandatory

 ... because they need that interaction, 

that sort of hands-on approach when they're solving complex problems with hardware and software," 

Max said.

"It's sometimes hard to do online and when you solve it, 

there's nobody around you to cheer with."

Despite asking staff on some teams to be in on specific days, Nanoleaf offers leeway for staff who moved out of the Greater Toronto Area or have scheduling conflicts.

Max says most of her friends in the industry, however, have been mandated back to offices.

When she asks why, they tell her they think their company's chief executive hates working from home, 

wants to justify the expense of office space 

or just doesn't trust staff.

Pushing back on such stances is proving tougher because of increasing tech layoffs.

Companies like 

Shopify, 

Google, 

Amazon, 

Netflix 

and Microsoft 

have culled massive numbers of staff from their workforce. 

Layoffs aggregator Layoffs.fyi counted 

231,695 workers across 968 tech companies globally who have lost their jobs this year alone.

"It's definitely more of an employer's market right now, 

so you may have to be more flexible in terms of 

salary, 

job title 

or where you want to work," 

Hicke said.

Yet Aleinik had luck finding a remote job, which she started in August. She's confident this employer won't force her back because her contract listed the role as 100 per cent remote and said if there was a move back to the office, it would be optional.

"Those were major green flags, but I would still say actions speak louder than words," she said.

"So if they buy offices and other buildings,

 ... if they say coming into the office is the best way to get to know your company, 

those are red flags that I missed before that I definitely don't see here."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 6, 2023.

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/canada-s-tech-industry-experiencing-shift-away-from-remote-work-1.1967711

"Thinking of taking Fridays off this summer? So is everyone else"/ "'No turning back': Fridays in the office are over for good"

Jun. 24, 2022 "Thinking of taking Fridays off this summer? So is everyone else": Today I found this article by Jo Constanz on the Financial Post:

Worried that summer Fridays will go the way of snow days? Don’t fret: They’re here to stay, and gaining in popularity.

According to data from job search platform ZipRecruiter Inc., 

listings offering summer Fridays are up 56 per cent from last year.

Remote work has dissolved many boundaries 

but Friday afternoons from Memorial Day to Labor Day in the United States seem to have retained their protected status. 

It’s a perk that thousands of organizations, from small startups to large corporations like Pfizer Inc. and International Business Machines Corp., offer to win talent and fight burnout.

“In a tight labour market with fierce competition for talent, 

but also rising input costs, 

many businesses have 

raised wages as much as they feel they can afford 

and are looking for non-monetary ways to appeal to candidates,” 

said Julia Pollak, ZipRecruiter’s chief economist. 

Offering Fridays off in the summer months appeals to job-seekers, she said, 

while “the monetary and productivity costs for many employers are minimal to none.”

Giving workers the day off can also improve morale. 

According to LinkedIn’s Global Talent Trends 2022 report, 

employees are two and a half times more likely to report being happy if they approve of their companies’ flexible hours and location policies.

Neal Manowitz, president and chief operating officer of Sony Electronics Inc. North America, recently posted on LinkedIn a sample out-of-office message that doubles as a recruitment ad:

 “PSA for #TeamSony. Here is how to reply to emails during our Summer Fridays. Or, you could just say ‘out of the office, went to the beach.’”

Almost four in 10 workers say their organization offers some form of flexible scheduling, according to a not-yet-released survey conducted last month of more than 3,500 employees worldwide by consulting firm Gartner Inc. Of those, half said the policy started in the last year.

Although the Monday–to-Thursday schedule is shaping up as the new normal, such flexible scheduling means that many employees can come and go as they please.

Data from the Hampton Jitney, a coach service that departs from multiple Manhattan locations and drops passengers off at various places in the Hamptons, 

shows ridership on Fridays is down 15 per cent from before the pandemic, 

while midweek traffic is up 19 per cent. 

The summer Friday tradition is said to have originated in the 1960s as a way for Manhattan publishing-house and advertising-agency staffs to beat the weekend rush to the Hamptons.

Catching the so-called cannonball train that departs Fridays just after 4 p.m. had been the “goal of many hard-working New Yorkers,” 

said James Keogh, a real estate agent at Douglas Elliman, 

referring to the nonstop Long Island Railroad train that leaves from Penn Station and arrives in the Hamptons in 95 minutes.

But now, “summer Fridays happen any day of the week, any time of the year,” said Judi Desiderio, chief executive officer of Town and Country, a Hamptons real estate firm.

Ethena, a compliance training platform, decided to start summer Fridays this year to reduce pandemic-related stress and burnout. 

“The lines have become really blurry between work and personal life,” said Melanie Naranjo, Ethena’s vice president of people. 

“Employees are looking for employers to help them set up certain boundaries” to build work-life balance into the structure of the company, she said.

Some policies, like unlimited personal time off, 

sound great in theory but put the onus on workers 

— especially younger 

or newly hired workers 

who may feel they have less licence to use the benefit 

— to figure out where to draw the line. 

Employees also return from vacation with a sense of dread 

to a full inbox 

and a mountain of work to catch up on, 

Naranjo said. 

“So we really felt that it was important to pick days for everyone to take off at the same time.”

Even if a company doesn’t offer summer Fridays in so many words, 

the rise of flexible scheduling means many employees can make it their own personal policy, 

whether or not their boss approves. 

In the words of one Twitter user: “companies that don’t grant your employees summer Fridays – the employees are giving it to themselves hope u know.”

Those with hybrid schedules are most likely to wrap up the week at home. 

“Fridays are the least popular day in the workplace,” said Jonathan Weindel, head of data analytics at workplace platform Envoy. 

In New York City in May, 

Fridays saw only eight per cent of the work week’s office foot traffic, 

down from about 12 per cent the same time last year, according to Envoy. 

Tuesdays were the most popular workdays, with 24 per cent of the week’s foot traffic.

Many people are taking advantage of relaxed schedules to depart for trips on Fridays. 

According to Flightradar24, a global flight tracking service, there were nearly 110,000 commercial flights last Friday, the most since March 2020. 

As statistician and writer Nate Silver put it on Twitter that day: 

“Never fight a land war in Asia 

or try to get to Newark Airport from Manhattan in the late afternoon of a summer Friday.”

https://financialpost.com/fp-work/taking-fridays-off-summer-join-club

June 27, 2022

This all works well when the jobs are plentiful , but when hard times hit the stick carrier becomes the caned

Jul. 29, 2022 "'No turning back': Fridays in the office are over for good": Today I found this article by Abha Bhattarai on the Financial Post:

Haley LaFloure picked up a couple dozen doughnuts on the way to work.

She forgot it was Friday.

The surprise she’d planned for her colleagues turned out to be on her: 

The office was empty. Everyone else at the St. Louis investment firm where she works had decided to close out the week from home, 

which meant LaFloure was stuck at her desk with enough sugary fried dough to last her a month.

“I don’t even like doughnuts,” the 25-year-old said. “I sat down and was like, ‘What am I going to do with these?’ ”

As white-collar workers across the country settle into hybrid work routines, one thing is becoming clear: 

Nobody wants to be in the office on Fridays.

The last day of the workweek, once synonymous with 

long lunches 

and early departures, 

has increasingly become a day to skip the office altogether. 

The trend, which was already brewing before the pandemic, 

has become widely adopted, even codified, in recent months and is creating new challenges for employers.

Just 30 per cent of office workers swiped into work on Fridays in June, 

the least of any weekday, 

according to Kastle Systems, which provides building security services for 2,600 buildings nationwide. 

That’s compared to 41 per cent on Mondays, 

the day with the second-lowest turnout, 

and 50 per cent on Tuesdays, 

when the biggest share of workers are in the office.

“It’s becoming a bit of cultural norm: 

You know nobody else is going to the office on Friday, so maybe you’ll work from home, too,” 

said Peter Cappelli, director of the Center for Human Resources at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. 

“Even before the pandemic, people thought of Friday as a kind of blowoff day. 

And now there’s a growing expectation that you can work from home to jump-start your weekend.”

So far, employers appear divided on whether to 

embrace a remote end to the week 

or to try to lure employees to the office. 

There are 

taco trucks 

and wine carts, 

costume contests 

and karaoke sing-offs, 

all aimed at getting workers to give up their couches for cubicles.

Even buttoned-up employers are learning to let loose. 

Citigroup Inc. has deemed Fridays “Zoom-free,” 

while accounting giant KPMG International Ltd. promises “no-camera Fridays” 

and lets employees clock out for the weekend at 3 p.m. in the summers.

“We want to make sure people are getting a break so they can recharge their batteries,” 

said Paul Knopp, chief executive of KPMG U.S. 

“We’re giving them a lot more agency 

about how they work 

— and where they work.”

Some startups and tech firms have begun doing away with Fridays altogether. 

Crowdfunding platform Kickstarter 

and online consignment shop ThredUp 

are among a small but growing number of firms moving to a four-day workweek 

that runs from Monday to Thursday.

Executives at Bolt, a checkout technology company in San Francisco, 

began experimenting with no-work Fridays last summer 

and quickly realized they’d hit a winning formula. 

Employees were more productive than before, 

and came back to work on Mondays with new enthusiasm. 

In January, it switched to a four-day workweek for good.

“There was no hesitation: Everybody was like, ‘Sign me up,’ ” said Angela Bagley, the company’s head of employee experience. 

“And it was amazing: 

We kept getting the job done. 

Managers were onboard, 

people kept hitting their goals. 

And they come back on Mondays energized and more engaged.”

But for other companies, finding the right balance has been trickier.

“Employers recognize that it’s tougher to get people to come back in, so they’re asking, ‘What can we do?’ ” said Julie Schweber, an adviser at the Society of Human Resource Management. 

“The answer is basically: 

If you feed them, they will come. 

Food trucks,

special catered events, 

ice cream socials, 

that’s what’s popular right now.”

Online Optimism, a digital marketing firm with offices in New Orleans, Atlanta and Washington, D.C., has a Friday routine of free lunches and free-flowing happy hours beginning at 4 p.m. sharp. The only rule: no shots.

Although the company has dropped all requirements for in-office work, 

as many as 80 per cent of its 25 employees show up on days when there’s free food,

said chief executive Flynn Zaiger.

“Honestly, the best socializing happens on Friday,” he said. 

“Why not have a beer or two? 

If people are going to be a little less productive one day of the week, 

I’d rather it be Friday than Monday.”

Those shifting norms are rippling across the economy and reshaping business patterns for commercial real estate firms, parking garage operators and the many eateries that cater to workers during the week. 

The drop-off in office work, particularly on Fridays, 

has led coffee shops to reduce their hours, 

delis to rethink staffing 

and bars like Pat’s Tap in Minneapolis to kick off happy hour earlier than ever — starting at 2 p.m.

“Since they’re not at the office, people come in early to pluck away at their laptops while they sip a cocktail or two,” said General Manager Dave Robinson. 

“By 4:30 or 5 on Fridays, we’re completely full.”

But lunchtime haunts that once saw large crowds on Fridays say they’re struggling. 

The drop-off has been particularly stark at Manny’s Cafeteria & Delicatessen in Chicago.

Business on Fridays is down 30 per cent from pre-pandemic levels.

“It’s painful,” owner Dan Raskin said. 

“Before the pandemic, Friday was the busiest day of the week 

— people would have an easier day at work and go out with their friends for lunch —

but now it’s one of the slowest.”

That’s also the case at LAZ Parking, which operates more than 3,000 garages nationwide.

Demand on Mondays and Fridays is much lower — by about 20 per cent 

— than it is midweek, said Leo Villafana, the company’s vice president for the Mid-Atlantic region. 

Wednesdays are the busiest days, though even when people do come in, they tend to stay for shorter periods.

The desire to work from home on Fridays is just about universal, said Johnny Taylor, chief executive of the Society for Human Resource Management, an industry lobby group.

“When you ask employees when they want to work from home, everyone wants Fridays,” he said.

Taylor began toying with hybrid schedules in 2015, long before the pandemic forced businesses of all kinds to adapt. 

But his early experiments with remote Fridays were a disaster. 

Employees blew off their work and began winding down after lunch on Thursday. 

Productivity fell off a cliff.

But now, as the pandemic enters year three, norms have changed. 

People are more accustomed to teleworking, 

Taylor said. He now allows remote work on both Mondays and Fridays.

“Fridays from home have become institutionalized,” he said. “There’s really no turning back.”

As employers confront this new reality, they’re looking for more adaptable offices with 

more communal spaces 

and gathering areas

instead of traditional cubicles. 

Think more 

comfy couches, 

coffee bars, 

libraries 

and patio work spaces.

“What people don’t want is to 

work remotely, 

together, 

in the office,” 

said Lenny Beaudoin, global head of workplace and design at commercial real estate services firm CBRE Group Inc.. 

“Why make the trip if I’m just logging onto Zoom, like I do at home? 

It’s up to organizations to have better conversations and choreograph their schedules. 

It can’t be haphazard.”

Perhaps most important — even more so than free food — Beaudoin said, 

is the prospect of interacting with colleagues. 

To that end, some firms are developing apps that offer employees a quick snapshot of who will be in the office on any given day, 

along with planned events 

and other perks, 

so they can decide whether 

getting dressed 

and making the commute 

is worthwhile.

“Just like nobody likes to eat in an empty restaurant, 

nobody wants to go to an empty office,” 

he said. 

“When people do come in to work, they want a real social connection.”

That’s proven to be the case at MasterControl Inc., a software firm in Salt Lake City, where employees have reconfigured their weekly rhythm to account for end-of-week slowdowns. 

The company’s fitness groups, including its running and biking clubs, 

have moved Friday gatherings to earlier in the week. 

Most meetings and training sessions are now on Mondays and Tuesdays, 

when the largest share of employees are in the office.

“Friday, the turnout is definitely much lower — you can see that just by coming into the office and looking around,” said Alicia Garcia, the company’s chief culture officer. “We’re finding that people really appreciate that flexibility.”

There are about 50 employees — out of 1,500 — at Overstock.com Inc.’s Utah headquarters on any given day. 

On Fridays, though? Hardly anybody.

The online retailer discourages meetings of any kind on Friday. 

Most corporate employees opt to work longer days during the week so they can take every other Friday off. 

But even for those who don’t, the last day of the workweek has become a much-needed respite from never-ending meetings and messages, said chief executive Jonathan Johnson.

“Fridays are the emptiest days,” said Johnson, who also works from home that day. “The office is open if people want to come but we don’t push it.”

Johnson limits himself to 

one Zoom meeting on Fridays, 

then catches up on emails, 

writes a weekly letter to the company’s board 

and plans out the coming week.

Though sometimes he makes room for more personal errands, too.

“I will admit I kicked off at 4 o’clock last Friday to get a haircut,” he said. 

“It tends to be a great catch-up day.”

https://financialpost.com/fp-work/office-fridays-over

Oct. 18, 2026 My opinion: If there's free food, I'm there.

I'm sure some of you are laughing at this part.

Have you noticed there were a lot of job articles in the news about working remotely from 2021-2024?

There are a few articles here and there now.