My own private Labor Day
by Jon Worley

Ten years ago a simple question changed my life. Perhaps this seems a bit overdramatic, but the thing is, it's true.

The summer after I graduated from high school I finally began carrying on like most teenagers. I spent my Clovis years in semi-seclusion in some vain attempt to make the time pass faster. Didn't work, of course, but that kinda explains my mindset.

Part of this little scheme of mine included very detailed plans for the future. I was going to attend the University of Missouri (which I did), gain admittance to the school of journalism (which I did) and get a broadcast journalism degree (I ended up in print). From there it gets positively fanciful, but let's just say 60 Minutes wasn't out of the question.

I had programmed myself toward these goals, and nothing was going to get in my way. Also, I didn't allow myself to think about much else. And that's where this question comes in.

One evening, my friend Gerry and I were driving up and down Main Street, with the music turned up quite loud. He turned and said something to me, but I wasn't paying attention. He already knew why, but it pissed him off, so he said something.

"Where are you going?"

I understood enough to know that he wasn't talking about the future. In fact, I kinda had to sit there and think. Well, tonight I was sitting in a car whose full transit covered 14 blocks of Main Street. And I wasn't paying the least bit of attention to what was happening around me. Pretty much the same thing I had done through five years in Clovis.

So I decided to give myself some time off from my dreams. I decided that I should enjoy life and not be so single-mindedly devoted to some maniacal ambition. This change in attitude probably saved my life.

Every week there is a story in the paper about some computer engineer or other similarly driven person who has killed himself (or, rarely, herself) due to terminal burnout. I had this type A craziness in the worst way. I was brought up to believe that I could do anything, as long as I worked hard enough at it. I took that belief to heart exponentially. I figured if I didn't almost kill myself trying, then I didn't try.

The irony here is that I'm essentially a lazy person. I do eight hours worth of work in four so that I can have the other four for goofing off. I've always skipped out of chores or anything else that didn't reek of selfish personal gain. But when it came to those singular dream, no quarter was granted.

And I still act this way, just not 24 hours a day. For six years I have published, in one form or another, a newsletter covering underground music. I've lost a huge amount of money on this undertaking (even considering the value of the CDs I've received), but I'm rather stubborn about it, and recently, it may have all paid off (the results aren't in yet). Hell, I married my first serious girlfriend, mostly because each of us were too stubborn to cash in our relationship chips when the water occasionally slipped below the rocks. As it turns out, that's a pretty good reason to end married, but still.

In each of those situations, however, I know that there is a need for time off. To stop the work and engage in a little play. I don't think Gerry was trying to be terribly philosophical or anything, but his question prodded me into a much more realistic way of life. He gave me my own version of the 40-hour work week. He was the union explaining to the management (my demented brain) that the workers just cannot endure 80 hours a week forever.

Luckily, my management got the message on the first try. I shudder to think what might have happened if my mind had been on the same wavelength as the UPS bosses.

People may bitch and moan that no one remembers the meaning of Christmas, but Jon Worley would like to point out that Labor Day is a day to celebrate the contributions the average workers and their collective bargaining organizations have made to our country. It doesn't have anything to do with picnics. It doesn't have anything to do with switching color schemes. And it certainly frowns upon so-called "right-to-work" laws.

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