Thank God It's Thursday?

The state of Utah is enacting a law for its employees that I can get behind -- a four-day work week. What could be better? You guessed it, a three-day work week. And what could be better than that? Well, you get my drift.

Employees for the state of Utah report to work at 7 a.m. and stay until 6 p.m., but have Friday off to go along with Saturday and Sunday. Actually, the four-day work week is catching on.

It's started as a way to reduce energy costs and impact the environment. Utah says a compressed work week has resulted in a 13 percent reduction in energy use and that employees have saved or will save as much as $6 million in gasoline costs. A survey showed that 82 percent of employees wanted to keep the four-day work week.

Other places have followed Utah's lead, including the city of El Paso. General Motors has instituted a work week of four 10-hour days. I've noticed many colleges are going to a four-day class schedule, turning the old one-hour classes on M-W-F into 1 1/2 hours on Monday and Wednesday.

It's a more compressed schedule, for sure, and for those with children and not getting off work until 6 p.m., there's some hasssles at nighttime. But I would suspect many would call that a welcome trade off. I often wished for the 4-10 schedule before it apparently became cool.