In last Wednesday’s ATL / Lateral Link survey, we asked you whether you billed over Labor Day Weekend this year.

We received 1,046 responses, and, not counting summer associates, 55% of you reported that your weekend was actually fun. Associates in New York and Denver were most likely to celebrate the holiday, with roughly two thirds of respondents in New York and all of the respondents in Denver taking the full three-day weekend.

Associates in Chicago and on the West Coast, however, were most likely to work over Labor Day weekend, with roughly 55% of respondents in Los Angeles, 53% of respondents in Chicago and San Diego, and 51% of respondents in the Bay Area logging some billable hours. (Respondents in the Bay Area were also most likely to work over Christmas and New Year’s, on Martin Luther King’s birthday, and over Memorial Day Weekend and the Fourth of July.)

Of those who spent the day at the office, about 48% reported that they weren’t actually asked to work the holiday, but had things they needed to get done, which is a bit lower than what we found for Martin Luther King’s birthday and Memorial Day Weekend.

But about 27% said that partners told them to work on the holiday, which is considerably more than we saw for the Fourth of July. And 15% said they needed the hours, which is up slightly from the Fourth of July weekend, which in turn was slightly up from Memorial Day Weekend.

On the other hand, only about one percent of respondents who worked over the holiday weekend said that they “wanted to impress people,” which is a drop from prior holidays. Perhaps some of the associates who billed patriot hours on the Fourth didn’t feel appreciated enough?

One associate wrote in that his efforts were for a good cause:

An *sshole partner was f*cking over a fellow associate with 19 hour work days, so I helped the fellow associate.

Another, not so much:

I’m a f*cking slave.

Overall, about 59% of respondents who labored last weekend believed that the work was worth it.

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Justin Bernold is a Director at Lateral Link, the sponsor of this Associate Life Survey.