CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Software product manager Alanah Tivola “celebrated” Labor Day by dutifully scheduling six meetings for tomorrow that she would have attended today, confirmed hungover sources reviewing their depressing Google Calendars.
“Paying for time off the next day seems kinda ironic for a federal holiday recognizing workers,” Tivola pointed out, dashing off a quick “sorry, triple-booked!” response to two of the three meetings now occupying her lunchtime. “I shouldn’t complain — my job isn’t physically hazardous except for the sexual harassment and the moldy conference room vents. And my health insurance almost covered something once. But seriously, why do we still need the Monday Daily Standup when the Tuesday Daily Standup is two hours later? It’s like some weird boss power move thing.”
Tivola’s boss, 43-year-old co-founder Paul G. Macklin, disagreed and insisted that every rescheduled meeting was essential.
“Unbelievable. This generation complains about everything,” Macklin said, pausing to berate his waitress for adding too many spicy banana peppers to his sandwich. “I give them the whole day off as long as they stay available on Slack. And then they come back and tell me they can’t be at their Monday meetings and Tuesday meetings at the same time. It’s like I told them to work in the mines or something. If you ask me, Labor Day shouldn’t exist. Problem solved.”
According to labor historian Prof. Cam Barbour, the trade unionists credited with creating Labor Day in the late 1800s would probably be stunned to learn that more than 100 years later, many Americans don’t have the day off at all.
“Whether it’s wage theft, states’ dangerous rollback of child labor laws, or tech employees having to sit in funny-looking non-ergonomic chair in a conference room for a pointless ‘weekly touchbase’ that’s just an hour of one guy listening to himself talk, we have a long way to go when it comes to American workers,” Barbour said. “But hopefully people at least enjoyed some decent Labor Day barbecues and then maybe considered unionizing.”
At press time, Macklin had canceled his late-Tuesday 1:1 with Tivola at the last minute due to spotty WiFi coverage at the beach near his Nantucket vacation house.