Y'all know why "Labor Day" is at the far end of summertime here in the States, right? --'Cos them there commies had done set it on 1 May in most of the rest of the world and we were havin' none of that, no siree. So it was stuck at the other end of summer, still at a time when the weather was good enough for rallies and speeches and dudes like Debs to make with the speeches: it was okay to have real Reds, just as long as the day was different. Oh, and the .gov (well, then-President Grover Cleveland) was concerned the day would become a memorial of the Haymarket Massacre if they let it happen on the first of May.
Like most of America, I'll be celebrating not by working -- or even by striking -- but in leisure. The Knights of Labor pushed us the 8-hour day* and holidays off, and you wouldn't want all the effort to have been in vain, right? ...One has to wonder what they would have made of the present fast-food worker's "strike." Has anyone noticed any fried-stuff-onna-bun shops actually closed by this effort? Succeed or not, you can bet one effect of it will be increased automation in the fast-food industry: electric burger-flippers don't hold out for higher wages and profit margins in drive-by dining are extremely thin.
Anyway, the Data Viking is coming down and we might -- might! -- check out some local festivalization, after which a trip to the range (or a range; I'm not sure what's open today) seems in order.
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* Where I work, it's eight hours-plus-the-stuff-that-fails-at-shift-end (or shortly after). See, there's what you can negotiate or legislate on one hand, and the innate perversity of inanimate objects on the other and the machines sure do seem to hate me leaving work on time or remaining unbothered once I arrive home.
Locally, probably nationally, the Labor Day weekend is when the hunting leases, blinds and deer stands are prepared, hauled and fine tuned in preparation of the hunting season.
ReplyDeleteWith the amount of work performed to accomplish these tasks, the irony can only be described as thick.
I have a friend who works at one of those places where he has an "eight hours-plus-the-stuff-that-fails-at-shift-end (or shortly after)" job.
ReplyDeleteBut in his case, it's the incompetence of his co-workers in remote offices, not the innate perversity of inanimate objects, that cause his overtime to occur.
"...the innate perversity of inanimate objects on the other and the machines sure do seem to hate me leaving work on time or remaining unbothered once I arrive home.
ReplyDeleteI don't know so much about the "inanimate" part. I've dealt with finicky machines that absolutely refused to adjust to specs for me, while an identical "sister" machine would almost do it for me.
Maybe they just care for you and want to see more of you and want to see you make extra money.