Does the president of the US work on weekends? What are his working hours like, anyway?
(I’m Canadian. I don’t know much about these things.)
I hope this isn’t too dumb of a question.
The president essentially works every day around the clock, even if he is officially on vacation. Apparently Obama has to make quite an effort to have dinner with his family every evening.
I would presume the same to be true of the Canadian Prime Minister and most or all world leaders.
A president is at work 24/7; if he’s sleeping he can be awakened at any time if there’s a crisis.
Even on vacation, the president works. He usually cuts down on his meetings and spends the time relaxing; his schedule will only include essential briefings and events. But he can’t get away from the job.
I read that the Obama white house is brewing beer. So apparently he catches a buzz now and then. But are we saying that a president can never get “wasted”?
If the President were paid overtime when on-call, he’d be making big money. He must always be within very few minutes of the Football.
(AFAIK, the Football does not contain a Red Button.)
The President has a scheduler(s) just like any important executive. That can be a mixed blessing. It saves the person from having to deal with requests for meetings. But it also means your life is controlled by that book. I’d imagine there’s not many free minutes in that schedule unless the President insists on free time. “Guys I will be in the gym 2-3pm deal with it.”
The President also has the extra burden of National crises. Which can trump any planned schedule.
Well, he probably shouldn’t. But Nixon was reportedly plastered during a good chunk of his second term, so obviously Presidents can drink to excess if they want to. There’s no law against it.
I’m not sure that we can say that a president has never been intoxicated—apparently Nixon was drinking quite heavily in the period leading up to his resignation.
But, yes, I think we can say that it would probably be problematic for a president to get “wasted” at any time during his presidency. You do not want to be that guy who was under the influence when something big happened.
And, speaking of football, a president must remember to chew his food when watching it.
Not to mention Ulysses Grant, who was reportedly very fond of his whiskey. Many feel that it was exaggerated, and that there is little evidence to support him being drunk while serving as POTUS.
Anyhoo, as to the OP’s question, the President does work on weekends. Not just in the sense of being “on call”, he’s physically in the Oval Office. A few years ago the “faux-outrage” of the week from the GOP was that Obama relaxed the WH dress code so that he and his staff didn’t have to wear ties on the weekend.
During the weekdays, he’s apparently very into having a very regimented schedule. He gets up at the same time, works out for 45 minutes, works till the girls get home from school, as a set few hours set aside for “family time” and dinner, and then goes back to work till bed (he’s apparently something of a night owl).
(source is an NPR interview I heard a few months ago with a reporter who shadowed Obama for a few weeks).
In related news, there’s this column by Elendil’s Heir discussing the concept of presidents getting plastered: