In the film and TV industry, there exists a thing of pure evil. A word that makes grown men shudder. An event that chills even the stoutest of hearts. This thing is called Fraturday.

Crew members are accustomed to working long hours, sometimes upwards of seventy or more in a week (I’ve done days over 25 hours, and weeks over 80, and boy-howdy it sucked!), but despite that hardiness of spirit, when it gets later and later towards the end of the week, we all hope to avoid the horror of Fraturday.

What is Fraturday? That terrible mingling of Friday and Saturday. The loss of your entire weekend to a work schedule that sees you beginning your day on Friday, and getting off work early Saturday, sometimes after the sun comes up.

As you can imagine, this leaves you a shell of yourself, only wanting to sleep and recover over your briefest of weekends. Social life? Forget it. Maybe you’re somewhat rested by Sunday. Then on Monday you start over again… at 6am. Yes, you heard the madness right. You get off work at 6am Saturday and start work at 6am Monday. Some shows even do this multiple weekends in a row (and occasionally have a crew mutiny).

So the next time you find yourself miserable at the prospect of another eight or nine hour day in a non-industry job, just take a deep breath and remember, at least you don’t have the misery of Fraturday.