If you’re reading this, you probably don’t do hard work

A better line to draw in the semantic sand -- and this is mentioned elsewhere in the discussion -- is toil vs. work. Nobody creates a portfolio of toil, unless it's on a resume used to get more of it.

My parents toiled so I could work. I work so future generations can do.. whatever work turns into. It's an important distinction, and one that I often think of when I consider bragging / commiserating about my stress. I am so damn grateful that I have to work and not toil.

I would say my life is pretty spoiled as a programmer, being able to work in a cushy air conditioned office, working on interesting problems.

But I still disagree with the author.. Hard work is where something requires a lot of effort to accomplish something, whether it be physical, mental, or emotional.

Physically demanding work is just a different category of hard work, not the only kind of hard work.

Mental fatigue is a thing, too. It's not the same as physical hardship, but that doesn't mean you haven't worked hard when you leave your air-conditioned office to get some rest because you can't focus anymore.

You might do "challenging work" or long hours of "shitty work", but not "hard work"? Etc

Sounds like the whole point rests on only a limited definition of the word hard.

Allow me to save you thirty seconds: The author defines 'hard work' as any kind of work that is physically taxing and/or dangerous. Any other kind of work is simply challenging, not 'hard'.

Enjoying some work, or deriving some kind of satisfaction from it doesn't make it not hard. That makes it satisfying and worthwhile.

Stress, toil, and taxing the body to the point of destructiveness can also make things hard.

I don't even do web development, but the proliferation of standards and browser incompatibilities seem to make it hard. "Hard" means that other people can't do it easily. From this article, building a search engine as good as google wouldn't classify as hard, because other people would want to do it. I challege the author to simply build a search engine that beats google, since doing so doesn't qualify as 'hard' by the definition used in this article. (Or, at least, I suppose, the work of doing so doesn't classify as hard. But if you can't do it despite all of your efforts, how can it not qualify as 'hard work'?)

I enjoy a counter-intuitive conclusion, and I agree with having a healthy degree of skepticism in the credit people give themselves for tasks and accomplishments, but I still feel that this amounts to saying 'satisfying or enjoyable work can't qualify as hard', and limits the definition of hard to simply 'doing what other people don't want to do'. Other people don't want to eat bugs. That doesn't make eating bugs hard. Some people want to climb difficult mountains. People want to do that, so no matter the slope or mountain or risk of death, that can't qualify as hard.

I do not agree that the picture there really describes a hard work. Yes, the author itself might suffer greatly when forced to do it but it does not necessary apply to the ladies photographed.

The sky looks to be overcast, so it is not particularly hot, air is supposedly fresh, the work is not mentally challenging, so you can think your thoughts, sing or socialize.

Unless they push themselves too hard.

Work is hard when you push or you are forced to push yourself due to external forces - environment, used heavy equipment, management expectations etc.

I think Seth Godin had something called hard emotional work, essentially risk-taking. The few times I've done it, it felt more draining than some of the following:

1) moving my gf out of here apartment; 2) cutting grass with a slingblade (sure like them french-friend taters); 3) loading trucks with no forklift

Though I'm sure Mr. Fried worked at a kibbutz in the middle of the Sanai and hand-dug a 40-km irrigation disk. And I'm sure he paid his dues to get where he is.

And so have I and probably most of HN-sylvania.

I'd like to see how this opinion would change if the lettuce picker went to school for a few years, studied really hard, practiced for a job interview, then got the job, then shows up every day and does something they didn't know existed a few years ago.

Sounds hard.

Other than that, this is just one of those "where I am isn't so bad, because there are people I view as worse off than me."

The hardest work -- my opinion, of course -- is those that deals with front line customers. The irrational and angry customer who you can't reason with because they want to be angry for angry's sake. It's hard because it is incredibly dissatisfying and a "win" doesn't carry over to the next interaction.

there goes 30 seconds of my life I will never get back.