CINCINNATI (WKRC) - Just before the Ohio River dives south towards the Mississippi, it winds past the Queen City.
Adorned with its own tiara, known as much for its chili-topped spaghetti as it is for its corporate headquarters, like Macy's and Procter & Gamble. It's a town of working people whose collars are blue and white and who bleed red and orange -- where flying pigs represent a place and where anything is possible -- even a four-day work week.
"Maybe gives you an extra day in the middle of the week to get your oil changed, some yard work,” said underwriter and analyst John Nerone.
He has contemplated it, as have many others who flood downtown's Fountain Square as the clock strikes the lunch hour.
"So a three-day weekend?" Local 12 asked a man racing down the sidewalk toward something much more important than our question.
"Yeah, that would be great," he answered.
Matthew Laugle is living the dream.
"Sunday, Monday, off Tuesday, work Wednesday, Thursday, off Friday, Saturday," he said.
It's not three consecutive days off, and it is 10 hour days, but that's OK.
"Once you get past that first five, six hours, the rest of it's a breeze," he said.
"How are you doing today?" Carmen Schneider, an RN at Christ Hospital's cardio unit, greeted her patient.
"I'm doing great,” answered the woman, much too cheerful for someone about to have an angiogram.
Schneider says she also likes her four-day schedule, and she likes her extra day off mid-week.
"If you go to your doctor's appointment, or if you want to go shopping,” she said. “The stores are empty."
Her patient used to work a four-day week. Then she was forced back to five.
Back downtown, our analyst is still analyzing.
"I don't know. You go four days, those would be longer days,” he contemplated.
For some, no amount of analysis will make four days pencil.
"We work to change the systems, impact childhood, and family poverty,” said a man who works for a community assistance nonprofit. “That's a seven-day a week job."
Back to our analyst:
"I like where I'm at right now, but it is an interesting thing to think about.”
For others, they can keep wishing, in a city where anything is possible.
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