Happy Labor Day

It is a strange feeling to be working on Labor Day.

Today is a regular workday in Paris -- in fact, as this Times piece discusses, the first regular workday of the fall season. As such it's quite an event: everybody greets each other with "Welcome back" and questions about how they spent their vacations (most of my co-workers seem to have gone to their second homes in Burgundy). The subway was jammed this morning for the first time in several weeks.

And of course, there are "rentree" sales in all the stores. Or there were last month, at least; I haven't passed by yet to see if they are still on. Perhaps the sales take place only during August to keep down the number of customers.

But even though it's a normal workday here, my e-mail inboxes are pretty much silent even at this hour, when they would normally be filling up with notes and replies as people wake up in the U.S. And at our daily conference call with New York, someone was in charge who usually never has that role. It took a few seconds to figure it out.

Happy Labor Day, all you back home. Hope you enjoyed the beach, or wherever you were.

Next year I'll appreciate it all the more.