This is a glum week for most football fans. After a month of absorbing competition, the World Cup is finally over. And four years is an awfully long wait for more.

Yet, for employers almost everywhere, Sunday's final whistle was reason enough to cheer. It signalled the end of four weeks marked with convenient sickdays, fallen productivity and endless football banter in the world's workplaces. Nowhere was this distraction felt more than in Latin America, where life in the many participating nations was brought to a virtual standstill.

In little Bermuda - whose national team is hardly likely to ever grace football's biggest stage - interest in the World Cup was undiminished. With a healthy expatriate community and a local population capable of switching the flags on their cars as fast as a Carlos Puyol header, Bermuda's football passion was clear for all to see.

But on an Island where business life can be unhurried at the best of times, The Royal Gazette set out to find how Bermuda's work rate and productivity fared during the last month.

An informal survey found most local employers to be fairly accommodating. There were no reports of bans on World Cup viewing - such as those which caused strikes in European factories - and most offices seemed to provide staff with televisions to watch the big matches.

One company willing to discuss its World Cup policy (most were not) was HSBC Bermuda.

"Many of our staff are client facing and they needed to be available as for any other day," reported a bank spokeswoman this week.

"That being said, we have many staff who are World Cup fans and were eager to watch some of the games. In the branches, we had World Cup showing on the client area televisions. "

The spokeswoman added that traffic in the bank's branches and phone lines dipped noticeably during the games, only to pick up later. Overall, she said, productivity remained high.

This appears to be reflective of much of the Island's workforce, with most getting on with the job save for a few breaks to check the score.

Meanwhile, at this newspaper the demands of nightly deadlines kept productivity at normal levels. A small television set in a corner of the office kept staff informed, while an office-wide pool meant almost every game had an interest for someone.

While excitement here stayed at a relative minimum (it all but disappeared after England's ignominious exit), the rest of the Island's enthusiasm was often apparent. Some journalists found interviews rescheduled, or else important phone calls unanswered during big match days.

Perhaps the world's hacks, like their employers, have at least one reason to be glad it's all over.