One of the many things I like about column writing is that I receive press releases. I know, that’s nuts. Who wants to hear from dozens of PR folks each week trying to publicize … pretty much everything?

Bingo. That’s what I like — I get to learn a tiny bit about pretty much everything. In a typical week I’ll read snippets about race car driving, insurance fraud, and, my current favorite, the many benefits of magic mushrooms. That publicist has been particularly creative, sending out a fresh take for each new season and holiday.

I hope I don’t sound sarcastic because I’m being serious. I enjoy press releases even when I can’t possibly use the information. The exception is when they go way over the top with their claims. And then my head goes boom.

The current mind-blower is one I received last week headlined, “Almost 60 million Americans admit they loathe their jobs, survey reveals.”

Wait, 60 million? Loathe their jobs?? Of course I read further. And discovered this beauty of a line: “(blank company) recently conducted a survey of 3,000 workers, asking them a straightforward question: ‘Do you loathe your job?’”

I’m not naming the company because I truly don’t want to give them any publicity. But if you’re dying to know, email me and I’ll forward the press release.

In the meantime, I have to note that “Do you loathe your job?” may be straightforward but it’s the worst possible kind of polling. The pollster’s hoped-for answer is built into the question, and leads respondents to use language they may never have come up with themselves.

So, that’s problematic. But have you spotted the real issue? Right — they polled 3,000 people and came up with almost 60 million answers. How? Apparently by extrapolating. Of the 3,000, the press release reports, 38% said “Why yes, now that you mention it, I do loathe my job” — or something to that effect.

Since the survey methodology didn’t clarify their process, I did some calculating and made this discovery: 38% of the U.S. workforce in 2019 (157 million) is …almost 60 million.

Leaving these egregious “polling” sins aside, I did gain some benefit from this messy business. The survey apparently asked follow-on questions about dream jobs that the respondents may have envisioned as kids, which I found interesting.

Most of the answers could have come from a children’s book on careers: firefighter, athlete, teacher, doctor, etc. Happily, 14% of the respondents are currently working in their dream jobs (and hopefully not loathing the experience). The rest, “a disillusioned 86 percent” according to the press release, are blocked from their childhood dream job by obstacles such as family commitments and financial limitations.

Here, at last, I come to the point I’m inspired to make: Not achieving the job you dreamt of as a child is not only not tragic, it’s normal. The United States government tracks 13,000 kinds of work in its Dictionary of Occupational Titles — a little kid is going to know what, six of them?

To thicken the plot, the jobs available to an adult today may not have existed when that worker was a child. In the 2022 Quarterly Journal of Economics, researcher David Autor and his co-authors found that approximately 60% of the jobs being conducted in 2018 didn’t exist in 1940.

It’s Labor Day weekend, an annual observance I take very seriously. American workers have literally died while protesting to achieve the rights we take for granted: humane working conditions, work weeks of 40 hours or fewer, the right to time off. We fall down a lot in confirming these rights, but we have come so, so far in mere decades.

My challenge to you this Labor Day: If you’re one of those (perhaps) 38% who “loathe” their jobs, or part of the “disillusioned 86 percent” who didn’t achieve a childhood vocational dream, do something. It’s time to discover what your grown-up self wants to do for a living, and then pursue it.

It doesn’t matter if you’re 20 or 70. If you plan to keep working, you deserve to like, not loathe, your job. But the responsibility is yours. You need to invest time to learn about current jobs, as well as which of your earlier dreams might still have options and what steps you need for making the change to get where you’re going.

Labor Day isn’t just for protesting. It’s also for dreaming and for planning how to build your future.

Amy Lindgren owns a career consulting firm in St. Paul. She can be reached at alindgren@prototypecareerservice.com.