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Comment by speleo_engr | Hacker News Reader

Undoubtedly there are really hard jobs. I'd put a mover on that list as well, along with oil field worker.

But it seems dismissive to say a dev can't claim burnout because they aren't doing something physical. When a junior dev, I once went into the office 23 days in a row and was usually there until 11 pm or midnight, sometimes later, sometimes earlier. I got burned out and left. It wasn't good for my health or relationships. I bet if you worked hours like that loading a truck you at least would have gotten overtime.

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How many of those days and hours were spent inside an air conditioned room with a bathroom and, probably, a kitchen/cafeteria?

I work in engineering for construction - when we were building Bertha's rescue shaft in Seattle the crews worked 5 months straight drilling holes and placing concrete with two crews on 12 hour shifts with only July 4 and Memorial Day off. When we excavated the shaft and repaired the machine we switched to three 8s and ran for almost another year.

Rain or shine, hot or cold, day or night. We worked that job every day. Nobody left until we switched to 8s because guys wanted to work 10s on another job - that's just blue collar work. In fact, that's the type of blue collar work that guys want because the OT pays the bills so you're right about that. The management on the project? Worked 1.5x as many hours as the crew because they would normally cover a shift and a transition. Every one salaried. Nobody left.

What the tech industry complains about for working conditions makes me laugh.

the OT pays the bills

Another way to look at this is that people are underpaid just enough to get them to work longer, but the knock-on costs of that (impact on health etc.) won't manifest until later and will likely be borne by someone else rather than the current employer. This is equally true for bricklayers and coders.

For context I also did many years of construction and manual work, I'd guess my life has been about 50-50 physical and brain work (of course they're not mutually exclusive). The above is an observation from experience rather than theory.

This seems like essentially a race to the bottom to claim that 'you can't truly be burned out unless you did X terrible job'. For example, your complaints about working conditions would likely make my parents laugh, because they would spend weeks out at sea working essentially 24/7 as fishermen in order to bring home a large enough haul to make the trip worth it. Not to mention the time spent traveling to Alaska and being away from home for months at a time.

Obviously blue collar work is going to be harder than white collar, but that doesn't change the fact that working conditions for each job can still be terrible relative to the type of work it's located in. It's the same for blue-collar work where not all blue-collar work is going to be equally difficult.

That's quite the story!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertha_(tunnel_boring_machine)

That sounds like a gnarly stretch of work you did. I’ve also experienced burnout and it is nothing to scoff at—this coming from a guy who also did physically demanding work. In terms of negative affect on my life, burnout tops the list.

I’m not the OP but I read the comment as not saying burnout isn’t a thing or that it pales in comparison to blue collar struggle. It was more that the common gripes you may hear at an office—especially from folks whose work history is only office work—tends to make you reflect. At least that’s my experience.

Ironically one of the most mentally cleansing things you can do is to bust your ass physically then sleep like the dead.

Might not even be a bad idea for larger companies that have the logistical range to get their staff swap collars a week a quarter.

An acquaintance of mine with law degree is a business development person at DHL. At Christmas time, he helps deliver packages. I think that's really cool. Kind of like "everybody codes" (including managers) in engineering at Google. (Is that still true?)

All true but blue collar work can mess up your body - either by wear and tear, or an accident. Then not only do you have pain, you also have trouble paying the bills.

A guy recently joined my team whose father was a mechanic and mother a health aide. He said he went into software because he didn't want to hurt and be exhausted like his parents.

I was a carpenter for about 8 years, then decided to go to grad school (defended last week). The prospect of cutting a finger off with a table saw or worse was definitely a factor in that decision. To be fair though, sitting at a desk 8+ hours a day isn’t doing your body any favors either.

Might I ask, did you do grad school in something related to carpentry? And if not, were there recommendations involved in the application process?

Mental exhaustion is a legitimate issue. But most blue collar jobs are demonstrably worse than most office jobs.

Factory line workers and truck loaders are trying to get into software, accounting, etc., not the other way around.

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