Today is May Day, which is celebrated as the first day of the spring season with May poles to dance around, and young people like Lysander, Hermia, Demetrius and Helena scampering off into the fairy forest to be tormented and tested by the amoral spirits of the natural world (that's Midsummer Night's Dream, if you didn't know). But it is also a day observed around the world to honour working people. In Canada, I guess we focus our attention on Labour Day, but in many other countries, there are parades, marches and protests on May Day as workers continue to fight for safe working conditions and fair standards of employment.
I was very gratified by many of you this past week who volunteered to "man" the displays for the Day of Mourning for workers killed or injured on the job. This is such an important issue for kids, because often, when it's your first job, you might feel nervous about standing up for yourself, or even about asking questions. You want your boss to like you and think you're a capable employee, and not a whiner or a complainer. You will find lots of challenges when you make your first forays into the world of work and one of the things we all need to learn is how to advocate for ourselves in an assertive and respectful way. Most employers want you to be safe and happy at work, because it isn't easy to get good employees. But some bosses don't know the rules, don't consider the consequences of certain ways of doing things and don't have your best interests at heart.
I've had lots of crummy jobs (while I was a student and later, when I was trying to get work as an actor) and one I remember vividly was a real estate developers' business. The boss was "not the brightest bulb in the box", you could say, and although he had a Masters' degree (apparently) in Urban Planning, he could not write a sentence to save his life. He'd give me his "memos" and reports to type and I wouldn't have a clue what he was talking about because they were so poorly written and I would have to rewrite everything and hope it was what he intended (I wasn't sure he knew what he intended). "Just put the periods in the right place," he'd say, as if that was the only writing challenge he had. The worst part of the place was the washroom situation. You would go into the washroom and the light would come on -- there was no light switch. The light would stay on for two minutes and then go off and the room would be left in pitch darkness! It was to keep you from "wasting the company's time" by lingering in the washroom, but of course, sometimes it takes longer than two minutes and if you tried to wash your hands, you'd be stuck in a windowless room with no light. I made a joke of it at the time, but in retrospect, I think it must have broken some labour code, because I don't think it's healthy to rush people in those circumstances!
I am lucky now because I have a job that I really like and that I feel is worth doing. Many people "lead lives of quiet desperation", working at jobs they hate and waiting for the weekends. Of course, I like the weekends, but I don't dread Mondays (except "curriculum implementation Mondays"!) and I look forward to seeing all of your shining faces after a couple of days of down time. Enjoy May Day and I'll see you "bright-eyed and bushy tailed", ready to work hard when we get back to school on Tuesday.
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