For almost two years, I have gone to the same place to get paid. Sure, there is work involved, sometimes even a little bit of stress. But the main reason I keep going is to get paid. If I stop going, I stop getting paid. It's not about the work (which is neither back-breaking or particularly stimulating much of the time), it's sometimes in spite of the people (although, for the most part, they are a nice bunch of co-workers), but it's never the lofty "I'm doing what I want to do" kind of work. And it never will be.

This may be my principle problem with working to get paid: there is nothing beneath the "paid" part. No loyalty, no gratefulness, no sense of satisfaction. When I finish a project or the day is done, I am relieved. I am done. I no longer have to work for money. For that day, at least.

There are generous perks to the job (which, for all intensive purposes, could be described as your regular run-of-the-mill office job). I get paid alright considering I've never been trained or taken classes for the work I do. For the last eight months, I've had my own office (this is changing in a few weeks, which means I'm not really as important as I thought). We have high speed Internet access (my mp3 collection of 2200 files and counting is testament to that), and for the most part, I am only there from 9 to 5, even though it is a salary job that requires I be there for as long as it takes to do the job with no extras for overtime.

Occasionally I can farm out small parts of my work to co-workers or interns, but mostly it is solitary work done with computers. On a good day, I can close the doors to my office (when the doors are not closed, the office is a lot like a hallway), crank the jukebox on one of my computers, smash the keyboards and swirl the mice to my hearts content. Because the client I work with is a large PC-based behemoth of the computer chip variety, my reports are done on a PC. But, because much of the work I do is graphically intense, I also split time with a Mac--with computers I am ambidextrous, but I prefer the Mac.

I was on vacation the week before last, and when I went in the Monday after, I was expecting a large data dump that I would magically turn into a finished report by Friday. Unfortunately, while I was gone, things did not run as quickly as I had been told before I left. So I got a third of the data at four o'clock on Tuesday afternoon, with much of the rest of the data coming in at various times on Wednesday. Other bits of data came in Thursday and even early morning on Friday. The report was still due on Friday at the end of the day.

This is actually regular working conditions for me. I never really believe the schedule they give me because it has never, in the history of working with this client, been what they've said. Such is life for the lowly office worker.

So when a day like Labor Day comes along (and I usually assume that Memorial Day is kind of like Labor Day, so that would mean it comes around at least a couple of times a year), I forget all of that crap.

I don't worry about the report I sent out at five on Friday until I get in Tuesday morning to a flurry of e-mail about how the colors I used for graphs weren't exactly what they were thinking of.

I get up, look around and see nothing to do. Sure, I need to weed the front yard. And maybe even rake up the back yard. Or, if we had a mower, mow the little patches of grass and weeds that have sprung up since the last shower. But is this really what I should be doing on my day away from labor? Should I do labor for myself--as opposed to labor for other people who pay me?

Is this what the government is telling us about Labor Day? We need to work--just in a different location.

I say screw it all. Don't get out of bed until noon. Start relaxing soon after your face is washed and the mouth rinsed. Veg. Sloth. Lounge. Fall down stinking drunk while the sun is still shining. Whatever makes you feel good--which I know might mean doing work for yourself. But think about this: Tuesday morning is not a day off work.

Make the most of the empty day and work when you get paid for it.

Matt Worley has had over ten different jobs (and job locations) in his life. No wonder monogamy is a hard concept to grasp.