Your Complete Publisher Specializing in Unabridged Works

Happy Labor Day! Which brings up the question: What exactly is Labor Day? As a kid it was the end of summer. It meant the next day I would ride on a school bus headed for another year of school. The day meant little to me then. As I got older it meant even less.

See, I was never much about backyard barbecues and get together's over a holiday. When I got older, I worked most holidays. Why? Because the people I needed to be gone so I could do my work would be home. They’re called shutdowns. When you need to shut something down and repair it, it impacts people, so I worked during such holidays to make the much-needed repairs. During these shutdowns. 

I worked most Labor Days. Worked Thanksgiving and Christmas day as often as I could. I got paid extra for it, so I took the money. What was Labor Day to me? What did I care when I could make double time and a half for eight hours? I took the money and the BBQ’s could be somebody else’s day.

Of course, there are all the sales on Labor Day. I could spend every last dime we make on tools during Labor Day weekend. Tools are my kryptonite. I can read tool catalogs like a nineteen-year-old watches porn. I love them and nothing beats a grand old Labor Day sale for tools. Nothing. My wife would not agree, but that’s a blog for another day.

Still, I didn’t answer the question, did I? All I talked about was what Labor Day appears to be to me. A chance to make money or spend it. A place to hold a BBQ and watch sports or talk about things you don’t really care about. A time to sit back and take a well-earned day off before stepping back on the treadmill of work.

But what is Labor Day, really? According to Wikipedia, it started:

Did this help? Not really? Yeah, me neither. Labor Day is about people who labor getting a day off in celebration. A great concept considering in the days it was proposed the standard work week was six days a week, ten hours a day. Long days and no paid overtime back then either.

Do you know where the forty-hour work week came from? Henry Ford. He instituted it in his factories so his own laborers and workers could take time off and drive in their new Fords. It was a marketing move, nothing more. He wanted his workers to use his cars to show off. To make others believe they too could take a weekend off and enjoy their new Fords. 

This is how the forty-hour work week got its start. Something those who work for a living around this country are grateful for. As they are for a paid day off. Who doesn’t like a paid day off on top of being off for the weekend? So, in the end, what is Labor Day to me? 

Today it is a day off with pay. Something I look forward to as I hope to never work another shutdown or holiday ever again. I take my holidays off now. Being with my wife is the most important thing in this world to me. Work can wait.

I’m Ross, The Editor-in-Chief at The Pyrateheart Press and I’m out.