It is supposed to be the Christmas of all oppressed workers of the world; a day that the said oppressed workers of the world take time off to reboot their system after a solid year of toil.

If that is the case, why then did I hear people actually call it ‘Labour Day’? If most people did not have to work on Friday, May 1, shouldn’t we then have called it ‘No Labour Day’?

Labour Day came and went, and here at The New Times, it was supposed to be an open ticket to rest, to neither type stories nor interview people. Or so I thought.

In fact, if my understanding of ‘Labour Day’ is anything to go by, we were not supposed to work on Friday, meaning you should not have read Saturday Times yesterday. However, because you, esteemed reader insisted on your inalienable right to information, we had to work Labour Day.

When I dropped by the office on Friday, all I had in mind was YouTube and Facebook: I did not think of Twitter and Instagram and Whatsap and Skype though, because all that I know in the world of social media is Facebook and YouTube.

However, my Facebook and YouTube dreams were nipped in the bud by an internal communiqué I found pinned on the notice board:

"This is to request for attendance of all staff members and freelancers for the Labour Day team building event organized by the company on May 1, 2015. Each staff is requested to wear the appropriate colour of T-shirt for team identification.”

In all, it was a lengthy communiqué, but the best part of it came last: "Please note: Lunch will be served.”

Now food, especially free food for Labour Day is an absolutely good idea.

However, to some of us, slugging and sweating it out with workmates in a game of football, it is more work than shoving pens and papers and recorders in front of news sources and typing stories all combined.

In fact, it’s Hard Labour!