As some of the hardest workers in the world, Americans deserve a day off -- this year, more than ever.
Why? Because employees in the United States generally labor more hours and take fewer vacations than their counterparts in other advanced economies. Because 10 percent of full-time workers don't get any paid vacation days, and those who do have to work about 10 years with the same employer to earn three weeks off -- and even then, 20 percent continue to work while on vacation.
But mostly because, with retirement accounts evaporating faster than jobs these days, many of us will have to toil until we drop.
Like many Americans, I started to work at 16 to save for college. The "office" was a farm market where dozens of kids my age sold produce and plants from small sheds at the edge of the parking lot.
On busy days we filled quart baskets with fruit and vegetables, trimmed and wrapped heads of lettuce, humped flats of flowers and bags of soil to customers' cars. When business was slow, we hand-lettered signs, flirted, dared each other to eat hot peppers and "deadheaded" geraniums -- thousands of them in greenhouses moist and pungent. Even now, the sight of the cheery red flowers lining the long porch of Mackinac Island's Grand Hotel can give me a queasy feeling.
Over time, I developed strong biceps from lugging 50-pound bags of potatoes, learned to hate prickly okra and learned to love the earthy guy who later became my husband.
The job helped pay for clothes, organ lessons and my first car -- a fast silver Nova my father brought home from a used car lot against his better judgement -- and lasted through the first summer of college.
Back then, everyone wanted to be a journalist. With Watergate unfolding before our starry eyes, we imagined ourselves as the next Woodward or Bernstein. Newspaper internships were hard to come by and, later, so were jobs.
For a time I freelanced for a nonprofit organization while trying out a series of positions to pay the bills. One was as an assistant to a veterinarian, where I lasted four hours. Shocked by his rough handling of the animals in his care, I left for lunch and never came back.
Finally I landed a job at a small grocery on the wrong side of the tracks, where the customers were more varied than the stock. Among my favorites were the three little sisters who shopped for their mom when she was too drunk to do it herself, and the wizened black man who was known only by initials and whose costume and persona changed daily. Jesus, in a big afro wig and white garb that looked suspiciously like a sheet, made the most regular appearances.
Eventually I settled into a career that has lasted 30 years so far. It's challenging and rewarding, but lately I find myself beginning to look forward to retirement someday.
Meanwhile I'll settle for Labor Day -- and be grateful I have a job at all when so many others are out of work.
Reach staff writer Marta Hepler Drahos at mdrahos@record-eagle.com.
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