Tag Archives: Labor Day

Labor Day gratitude

Happy Labor Day everybody! Here’s to us, the workers, the men and women that make this country work. If it weren’t for a strong work ethic, this nation would have gone straight down the pipes a long time ago. So go ahead, take one Monday off, you earned it.

Here’s to a minimum wage that hasn’t gone up in forever, that when adjusted for inflation, doesn’t allow a full-time working adult to make a living. Here’s to you, minimum wage worker, thanks for doing what you’re doing, even though you probably have to ask for some sort of government assistance even though you are working, even though a lot of minimum wage employers won’t actually hire you full-time, they’ll make your hours just a little short of full-time, because they don’t want to pay you insurance or a living wage.

A special Labor Day thank you to our wonderful politicians, year after year doing nothing to address the issue of stagnating wages. Thanks to the Democrats for paying very mild lip service to crafting legislation that would force job creators to pay a fair wage to their workers, but an extra special thanks to the Republican naysayers, ensuring through their steadfast opposition that eight or ten dollars an hour mandated by the government is just fine.

And a shout out to all the employers that only pay their employees the legally allowed bare minimum. You’re doing a great job. This is what America is all about. This is what life is all about. It’s about taking as much as you can, giving as little as possible, and making sure that nothing ever changes.

But really, thank you, thank you, thank you, to the millions of illegal immigrants currently toiling away in our fields, picking our strawberries, canning our tomatoes, all of the sharecropping jobs that pay just enough for an individual to survive. How much does an undocumented immigrant make nowadays anyway? I have no idea. That’s the whole point. It’s undocumented.

Just never complain about anything, you hear that aliens? We all appreciate your hard work, but if you complain, or cause a fuss, we’ll send you back. Where? Who cares? Somewhere south of the border. You want that? We don’t really care, because there are millions and millions of eager non-citizens willing to risk their lives to take your place. They won’t complain. So think about that the next time you try another one of those May Day parades come spring.

Finally, I’d like to send out my sincere thanks to the people at the top. Thank you, really, thank you, for making our country what it is. You are the foundation upon which the entire nation stands. You create the jobs. You spend the money that makes funding national campaigns possible. You send the lobbyists to Washington to then remind the politicians what they were sent there to do. Thank you for using your power responsibly and fairly. It’s very clear that, with all of the money and power and law at your disposal, you’ve all been doing a really good job for the past thirty years making America a great place for everybody to live. Seriously, business people live and die by results. And the results speak for themselves. Keep up the great work. Don’t change anything.

Everybody else, I hope you had a nice day of barbequing. It would be nice if you could come in early tomorrow and get a head start on the four-day week.

Happy Labor Day

Happy Labor Day everyone, if that’s what you’re into. Personally, I feel like Americans are always looking for an excuse to take another day off, like the weekend isn’t enough time to sit around not being productive. Not me, I’ll be working extra today, double, or even triple if I can hustle fast enough. Because that’s what makes America great, working, getting back to work, taking a five minute break instead of a ten minute break, and then only using three of those minutes.

My grandfather always used to say, “Work smarter, not harder.” Out of respect for my elders, I’d hold my tongue. But now that he’s dead, I don’t feel bad holding back. That’s a lazy man’s motto. My motto is, “Work smarter and harder,” emphasis on the work. Just keep going, don’t stop moving, never stop working. There’ll be plenty of time to not be working harder when we’re dead.

And while I’m on the subject of dead people, talk about lazy. They’re laying around doing absolutely nothing, no work at all, zero productivity, and yet we have to get them nice suits, fancy coffins, we’re supposed to take time out of our busy days to reflect upon all the good times, visiting their graves every once in a while. What a bunch of nonsense. Look, I’m sorry that you’re dead and that you’re no longer of use to the workforce, but do you think it’s fair to be eating away at the billable hours of the living?

Look, this is probably all coming off as incredibly insensitive. It’s just that I always get riled up on Labor Day, another half-baked excuse for the hippies and the communists to loaf around all day and act like work is some sort of a chore, like sitting around and binge watching an entire season of Breaking Bad is something not only to be proud of, but something deserving of a national holiday.

Has anybody checked out the roots of Labor Day? I think it’s supposed to be an actual day of labor, like all right fellas, summer’s over, enough whining about the heat and trying to sneak out of work early at eight. Let’s hit the fiscal year hard, starting now, starting today, Labor Day. And that’s where you’d see your Labor Day sales, stores like Brooks Brothers and Sears would get you to load up on work shirts and trousers, so that way you couldn’t make up any excuses like, “I need five minutes to drop off my dry cleaning.” Just undo the buttons and put on a fresh shirt. And make sure you’re changing during your three-minute breaks, on your own time. We’re not paying you to put on a fashion show, here.

I’m sick and tired of people afraid to roll up their shirtsleeves and put in an honest day’s work. Everyone’s always taking bathrooms breaks or hanging out by the water cooler or dropping of their parents at the oncologist. What ever happened to a good old-fashioned work ethic? Since when did sweat and a little elbow grease become such scarce resources?

Oh no, it’s fine, I understand, your family’s having a barbeque today. Excuse me, I didn’t realize that sitting around and eating hamburgers was somehow beneficial to the economy, good for the bottom line. I’m sure the shareholders will understand why our revenue was off by about a fifth this week, “Sorry ladies and gents, but the boys felt like sitting around and drinking beer today, blowing up stupid inflatable pools for their snot-nosed little kids, even though they’ve just had a whole summer not going to school, not learning anything, because their lazy teachers with their socialist unions refuse to work for two months out of every year.”

And we wonder why China’s catching up, right? I hate to say it, but that’s a country, a people that really value the meaning of the word labor. Every day is Labor Day in China, and in a good way. Not like the commies over here, everyone looking for a government handout, another excuse to take the day off, “But boss! It’s Christmas! But boss! My mom just died! But boss! I’m just so lazy!”

Think about it. Think about what makes us great. Think about what gives your life meaning. Think about you, sitting in your backyard, shoving hotdogs down your fat face. If you change your mind, you know where to find me, I’ll be in the office, working. Let’s get back to work people. Happy Labor Day.

I miss summer vacation

What am I supposed to do for the rest of the summer? The Fourth of July is long gone. There aren’t really any holidays to look forward to until Labor Day, which in my line of employment, it’s more of a joke than an actual holiday, because I always work Mondays at the restaurant, and especially on holidays, especially on holidays that don’t really have anything to do with anything real, it’s like people go out to eat in droves. Personally, I’d never wait on line for more than ten minutes to sit down and eat, but I’m clearly in the minority here, because on any sort of a day off, it’s like, let’s go out to a restaurant everybody.

Labor Day, it’s an actual day of labor for me. So I’m not counting that as a holiday. And then Columbus Day? Again, it’s the same. Most jobs still make you come in anyway. I think it’s just banks that take the day off. But that’s not until fall. I’m losing track of where I was going with this. It’s still technically summer, and I can’t think of anything special to do.

And I don’t know what the problem is, really, because when you think about it, there’s nothing really at all different about July or August than there is February or March. They’re all just regular months, go to your regular job, wait for the next holiday, which is always way too far away. It’s just the weather that changes. I’m freezing, and then the next thing I know I’m way too hot.

It just sucks because we spend the first twenty-two years of our lives having summer as a vacation. Even if you had a job growing up, which I always did, you still got two months where you didn’t have to go to school. When I was in high school, and then during those summers in between college, I’d love to work some crappy job. One, regardless of how pointless the work might have been, it was all very temporary. And two, it was a break from the normal routine. No school, no classes, something different.

And then you’re an adult and the weather starts getting warmer and there’s still that expectation that something different is going to happen, that for two months anyway, even if I’m not going to be able to sit around and do nothing, I’ll at least get a well needed change of scenery.

Now I’m twenty-nine, so I’m still at this point where the majority of my life experience is telling me something different than what I’m actually experiencing: a life of going to work over and over again, maybe I don’t hate it, maybe sometimes I do hate it, but it’s something that I have to deal with, because it’s never going away, there’s no rest at all. Once in a while maybe I’ll take a day off or a couple of days, a week or two once a year, but that’s it.

It’s just so soul crushing. And I hate sounding like such a whiney little brat, I totally realize how entitled this all sounds. But I just hate the fact that we have this warm weather, that all I really want to do is just go outside and run around and relax and play with my dog and cook a nice meal. I’d get my writing done when I felt like it, I’d have plenty of time to read the newspaper or some books, all of the stuff that I never get to do.

Because my real life is just waking up, struggling to get a run in, making myself sit down to write all of this stuff out, why? Because I want to be a writer. Why? So that way I could do all of this fun stuff that I’m talking about without having to sacrifice seven hours a day at a restaurant. And again, I don’t hate it. I definitely don’t love it, but in terms of a job that I have to do to pay my bills, whatever, I could have it a lot worse.

But all of that stuff, the reading, the cooking, more exercise, more time to just take a walk with my dog, maybe do a little gardening, there’s never enough time. I always go to bed at the end of the day thinking that there was so much more that I wanted to do that I wasn’t able to because I had to go to the restaurant and run around like a crazy person getting this, doing that, and by the time I get home, I always tell myself, you can do it Rob, you can stay up a little bit longer and get some more work done. But then I’m asleep. And then I’m waking up again. And it’s the same old, same old, every day, winter or summer. I just want to go outside. Just give me two months to go outside and hang out. That’s not so bad. We’re a pretty rich country. This is a pretty advanced society. Can’t we make it so we take turns working? Right? Wouldn’t that be nice?