September 2, 2007 -- Yes, another essay on Labour Day.  Reading two or three columns today has inspired me, as well as the usual smile about having a day called Labour Day in which one is not required to do any Labour.  This is the one holiday in the year that has no obligations about it except just to stop doing what you were doing and take the day off.  I will do laundry today because everyone else will be sleeping in, but otherwise I am going to the park, to the pool, and to the outdoor cafe to just enjoy a day without any work in it.  Tomorrow I will go back to managing my parents move from Alabama to New York, keeping my boss on an even keel as she goes through a very bad patch at home (and helping to keep the practice going), and preparing for the Petit Le Mans in Atlanta which is my favourite race.  Today I am going to enjoy Labour Day by not labouring.  I did my work Saturday, went to the Air Show yesterday (and got sunburned) and I am caught up. 

Well, on to Labour Day and what Labour means.

Florence King wrote an essay once about a time when the muse had deserted her and she took over the job of janitress at her apartment building to make some money while the dry spell happened.  She talked of the woman who had been fired from that job, who had carried the same pail of water through the whole job and who left the place conspicuously messy when she was *finished* for the day; and she talked of her own work to make sure the building shone like a new penny when she finished that same work.  And above all else she talked of the satisfaction in a good job well done, in being able to leave work for the day with a glow of pride, saying *I did that.*  Contrary to Doug and Wendy Whiner who constantly bawl that their work has no *meaning* and that it interferes with their coffee drinking, gossip, playing with their babies and hobbies, there are no unworthy jobs.  There are only unworthy workers.

In my own life I tend to work without ceasing; it is hard for me to relax and take time off when there is yet more to do.  I do not hold others to a higher standard than that which I set for myself, but there are times when even I realize that my standards are so high that they lead not to accomplishment but to despair.  Nevertheless, when I see people sitting surrounded by piles of debris -- files unfiled, boxes uncatalogued and unsent to storage, tapes untyped, dockets unentered -- and see the employee gossiping with others, hanging around the lunch room, sending *humorous* e-mails to friends ... and when I hear the constant whining about how Work Life Balance (the latest buzz phrase for people who want to be paid by their employers not to do the work for which they were hired) -- I wonder where the pride has gone.  Yes, it is true that here in Kanukistan I am doing 1/3 the work I did in the USA for about 2/3 the money.  Expectations up here are very low, and yet most people cannot meet them because they choose not to.  And one of those reasons, it has to be said, is that the socialist government takes 46% of our pay away from us to buy the votes of people who refuse to do anything but procreate and whine.  Lately I have been snickering quietly to myself as various wealthy cities and provinces begin to realize that they throw more money into the pot than they will ever get back in Goodies.  Because that, boys and girls, is where Socialism fails every time: the successful people find out that they would be doing a whole lot better if they were not forced to drag a trailer load of parasites everywhere they went.  The exit of the productive is what collapses the system every time; and in the passive-aggressive Withdrawal of Services I see around me when people stop working hard at the work they were given because lets face it, that only means more money taken away from them to be handed over to others who did not earn it, is the beginning of the end.

As for me, having developed a work ethic in the Fifties and having been taught by my parents that I owe my employer a full days work for a good days pay, its probably too late for me.  But on this Labour Day I am enjoying the thought that someone has thought up a holiday when nobody even needs to send out cards.  Happy Labour Day.  Go and do Nothing to celebrate.

But then tomorrow, get back to work.  For the sake of your own soul if nothing else.  And for those who go back to school tomorrow, just a hint in your ears: if you coast through school learning nothing, you are not harming the teachers.  One day people will turn to you for an answer you should have known, and the whole thing will collapse because you were busy text messaging a dirty joke to a friend when the teacher was covering that.  Think about it now or prepare to be humiliated later.  Real Life is not forgiving.  Just a hint.  Happy Labour Day.