It was told to me last night that retirees, particularly people who have been retired for some years, rarely know what day of the week it is on any given day. The rationale was that just like people on vacation they don’t often need to know what day it is. This seems totally preposterous to me. Anyone got the dope?
I’m not retired, but I have to think about what day it is when someone asks me.
My father is a teacher and forgets the day of the week constantly in the summer. When your life revolves around getting up and doing whatever you want, do you really need to know the day of the week?
I would guess that if you had a rigid TV schedule, you would know the day of the week.
“Sundays I watch Meet the Press, Mondays is CBS night, and Thursday is Bass Masters!”
Anytime I have more than a few days off, I always have to think about what day it is. Same when I was in school- I’d have to check the Giants’ schedule to see what day it was.
I’m a teacher and I have never had trouble knowing the days of the week in summer.
Despite being on vacation, I do have appointments and things gonig on that require knowing what day it is.
It might have *some *validity. I’m a long way from being retired but I don’t have a rigid Monday-Friday 9-5 schedule and a lot of the time I mark the days by what work duty I’m doing rather than by the day of the week. It can take me a few moments to work out what day it is at times but that doesn’t mean I can’t work it out quickly enough should I need to know the name of the day. I expect some retired people operate in a similar way with their regular events being used to mark the days.
This is an answer probably more fit for IMHO, but I work at a doctor’s office where I deal with many retirees on a daily basis. In my experience, a large minority of them don’t seem to know what day of the week it is.
I work 5 or 6 days a week, and other than Friday (yay!!) I often do not know the day of the week without checking my phone’s display. I would wonder about early Alzheimers, but I’ve always been like this.
When my mom retired, she got a calendar with the days labelled on the top “Sunday Saturday Saturday Saturday Saturday Saturday Saturday”.
Of course, she still has church, two book clubs, a pottery class, and babysitting for my sister’s kids, each of which is a different day of the week, so she does still keep track. And I’ve noticed that when she’s travelling somewhere for a few days, it’s still usually on a weekend, which I suspect is force of habit.
Don’t foget Matloooock!
Just yesterday my mom told me how my (retired) dad was out mowing the lawn, and noticed the neighbour doing the same. He laughingly told the neighbour, “I thought it was Friday until I saw you out here, so I guess it’s Saturday already.”
The nieghbour: “It’s Thursday… I have the day off.”
When I’ve been in a non-working phase, and when I’ve worked jobs where it wasn’t pertinent to the job, I’ve always had trouble keeping track of the days of the week and the date.
Unless you’re OC about keeping track of time and date, you just don’t bother when you don’t need to know.
I’m unemployed and I thought today was Thursday.
Yeah when I went traveling for several months at a time I often forgot what day of the week it was.
I remember waking up in my hammock one afternoon in a tizzy desperately trying to figure out the day and date. I was afraid our visas had expired whilst we were chilling at the beach. And, I’ll have you know, I had to root around for some time to figure it out too! Fortunately I had put a calendar in my journal.
And I quite liked it. It felt good not to be connected to that regime. Every now and then I’d think, “Gee, it’s Monday morning back home right now, my friends are dragging their sorry asses off to work, poor things!” I was in no hurry to put that yoke back on when I got home either and my friends found it very amusing.
This is why I keep finding myself glancing at my watch to verify what day of the week it is, and why I’m glad I now have a DVR that’s set to record my favorite shows. And I’ve only been retired since last September.
And it is nice being able to take an afternoon nap without having my boss walk past my cubicle and wake me up. 
I’ve been retired (so to speak) since 2000. I can tell which day of the week it is by way of the TV schedule and by various dates I see online. If I go a few days without TV or the internet it gets fuzzy. Weekends are obviously different from weekdays. But if a holiday comes in the middle of the week, I’ll get confused for a few days. And if something else special throws a “weekend feel” to a Monday or a Friday I’ll also get a bit confused.
In short, maybe 10 times a year I’ll lose track of the actual day of the week.
Now ask me if I wear a watch.
I definately forget what day it is over summer holidays- I get up every day and go down the pub or the park to see what everyone else is up to. Doesn’t make much difference whether its a weekend or not.
My father, who is 91, seems to have problems. My wife works from home, and she sometimes forgets.
When I’m retired, I’m not going to give a damn, except to know when the weekend is to avoid going shopping then. And for doctors appointments, which seemed to have filled much of my parents days…
I get this problem when I take just one week off work, so I totally expect that many retirees don’t know what day it is.