Counting the insipid illustration, today’s New York Times op-ed page devotes a whopping ninety column inches -- the whole page except for an ad and a Bob Herbert column -- to a series of reminiscences entitled “An Ode to Loved Labors Lost.” The authors of the mini-memoirs are Tom Brokaw; Ari Fleischer; folk-rock singer Suzanne Vega; Scott Adams, creator of “Dilbert”; Nobel economics laureate Gary S. Becker; Vogue editor Andre Leon Talley; celebrity chef Alice Waters; and Laurie Notaro, a newspaper columnist who was recently a New York Times bestselling author.

Reading this just now, my father-in-law asked a good question: “Where are all the workers?”

Yes, where are they?

Is this what Labor Day means on David Shipley’s Times op-ed page -- something you did years ago, when you were fifteen, before your real life of success, wealth, fame, and getting other people to do the scut work began? You know, David, some people actually do tedious, exhausting, soul-deadening work all their lives, and some of these people can actually read and write. How about a few of their stories?