The Joy of Working When Everyone Else is Gone

By the last man in the office

There are two types of people in the world: those who take holidays, and those who pretend they don’t need them. Guess which one runs the startup?

Yes, it’s me—the one-man conga line of capitalism, waving to the cleaning staff on public holidays and wondering why nobody replies to emails on May 1st. “Isn’t that Labour Day?” they ask, sipping rosé from a terrace in Provence. Of course it is. That’s why I’m working—to celebrate labour.

In large corporates, holidays are a kind of secular sabbath. Whole departments vanish like socks in a washing machine. “OOO until September” becomes an acceptable auto-reply. Projects are paused, decisions are delayed, and PowerPoints are put out to pasture. Somewhere between July 15th and August 31st, Europe undergoes a mass professional rapture. No one’s left but interns and confused Australians.

Startups, however, are different. Holidays are what you talk about in pitch decks (“We’ll have unlimited vacation”) but never actually take. Founders don’t do rest—we do “recharging sprints,” ideally while answering investor calls from a beach with suspiciously good Wi-Fi. It’s not masochism. It’s just the unrelenting, capital-obsessed desire to get one more feature out the door before our Series A dries up.

And yes, I came to the office on a public holiday. And yes, I brought my own coffee. And yes, I celebrated the workers’ movement by doing three back-to-back calls with America. Somewhere, Karl Marx is shaking his head and muttering, “Not like this.”

Do I get funny looks for working when everyone else is out sailing? Constantly. But someone has to keep the lights on. Someone has to answer the emails. Someone has to ignore the calendar notification that says Bank Holiday.

So no, I’m not taking the day off. I’m taking a stand. A lonely, inbox-zero stand.

Happy Labour Day.