Your Spyder profile "works" even if it isn't set as your working space.
The two have very different purposes. The monitor profile is there to "translate" your standard working space to the peculiar particulars of your specific monitor. If you use that as your working space you won't notice anything wrong on your own system, but wait till you try to show your pictures on another computer...
sRGB is pretty fail-safe as a working space and the best choice until you get more experienced.
:-)