Let me tell you about my first job.

I got my first real job one summer in high school, as an optician’s apprentice. (That’s kind of like a Sorcerer’s Apprentice, only with contact lenses instead of magic brooms.)

It was a little out of left field, but going in, I was pretty optimistic. I had no idea what an optician did all day, but it had to beat working as a fry cook like most of my friends were doing, and the prospect of learning a trade was interesting.

The actual work itself actually did turn out to be pretty interesting, but it was overshadowed by what I quickly learned was the worst part of the job: The Boss.

The Boss was the optician I was apprenticed to. He was pretty good about sharing what he knew and giving me chances to practice my skills. But he was also, I discovered, deeply, thoroughly, completely paranoid.

His paranoia wasn’t really aimed at me. Instead, it was aimed at the customers, all of whom he was convinced were out to swindle him at every opportunity. Mostly he limited expressing his paranoia to just grumbling in the back of the shop after the customer had left. But one day it all boiled over.

A guy came in to buy a new pair of eyeglasses. He needed them rushed, he told us, because he was going to leave town on a business trip in a couple of days, and he needed to have them with him. Could we accommodate that? Of course, The Boss assured him. No problem.

So the guy leaves and The Boss explodes. He turns to me and says “You realize that guy just lied to us.”

“Huh?” I responded.

“He’s not going on any business trip. He just wants to push us around and make us work double quick. He just wants us to dance to his tune.”

“But he’s paying a rush fee,” I observed (reasonably, I thought), “so who cares?”

“I care!” shot back The Boss. “And I’m gonna show him. And you’re gonna help me.”

Uh-oh, I thought. This isn’t gonna be good.

“You’re going to call the airport,” he told me. “Every airline. And you’re gonna ask them if they have anyone by that name flying out two days from now. And when they all say ‘no’, I’ll know for sure he’s lying, and I’ll hit him with that when he comes to pick up his glasses. That’ll show him.”

I took a moment to let the ridiculousness of this moment sink in, then responded. “Uh, I don’t think the airlines can give you that kind of information over the phone,” I said, “passengers’ privacy and all that. So since I won’t be able to get an answer, why don’t we just skip this?”

“Oh, you’ll get the answer,” he replied. “I don’t care how, but you’ll get it. And I’m gonna sit back there — ” he gestured towards his desk in the back office — “and watch you make the calls to be sure you do it.” Then he marched back to his desk, planted himself in his chair, and waited.

Staring at me.

As you can imagine, this put me in a bit of a bind. I didn’t want to lose my job over something this ridiculous. But I equally didn’t want to go playing Sherlock Holmes to try and ferret out some random guy’s travel plans.

But The Boss sat back there, staring at me. “What are you waiting for?”

So in the end, here’s how I handled it. The Boss was far enough away that he couldn’t hear every word I said on the phone. So I called every airline at the airport, and when they picked up, I whispered this into the handset: “Hi. I’m about to ask you a question that I know you’re not allowed to answer. I have to ask you this question or I will lose my job. So if you could just say ‘I can’t tell you that’ after I ask you, that would be great. OK?”

And once they came back with “OK” (some took longer than others, as you might imagine), I cranked up my internal volume level so The Boss could hear and said loudly into the phone “Can you tell me if Mr. X is flying out of town on your airline anytime tomorrow?”

Just as I’d asked, they all responded with “Sorry, sir, I can’t tell you that”. So I went back to The Boss and told him honestly that every single airline had refused to answer the question.

He wasn’t happy. He ranted and raved about it for the rest of the day. But by the next day he’d forgotten about it, and when the guy came in to pick up his glasses, he handed them over without a fuss.

So why do I tell you this long-winded story on Labor Day? Because this was my first introduction to the idea that bosses don’t always use their power wisely. Sometimes they use it to bully their workers into doing things that are uncomfortable, or questionably ethical, or downright illegal.

I’m not sure where my experience falls on that scale — but it doesn’t matter, because I shouldn’t have had to deal with it. I shouldn’t have had to go prying into someone’s travel arrangements just to satisfy my boss’s crazy insecurities. But The Boss had all the power and I had none, so there wasn’t much I could do but go along — or risk losing my job. (That was a scary enough prospect for a teenager, imagine how much scarier it is for someone supporting a family!)

So that’s what Labor Day means to me — it’s about celebrating all the protections that working people have won to limit the power of bosses to subject them to these kinds of degrading experiences. And it’s about remembering the millions of workers who still aren’t protected, and rededicating ourselves to continuing the fight until every working man and woman in this country can go to work knowing that they can’t be harassed, or discriminated against, or forced to work in unsafe conditions, or simply pushed around like I was by their boss.

But enough about me. What does Labor Day mean to you? Sound off in the comments.

(This post is part of the Take Back Labor Day blogswarm — visit TakeBackLaborDay.org for more info.)