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Comment by dugditches | Hacker News Reader

There is something very draining about 'menial' physical labor. Especially in the modern era, where lots of the remaining factories run 24/7 operations to stay open.

A bigger issue in more modern factories is technology augmenting old analog processes and systems. So now you have the physical burden of the work, which is much faster since all the 'thought' is handled by automation. However now you're responsible for the labor and babysitting the automation(which can go awry often and quickly).

I found it worse in the Winter, with the shorter days. Where sometimes you'd rarely see the sun in a month.

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There are various notions of "focus" in academia, many of which are associated with the "positive psychology" school.

In sympathy with your observation, I've looked for studies of these phenomena. But I haven't yet seen any study about the difference between "focus" in contexts where the agent has deeply internalized complex skills (e.g. an athlete) versus "focus" in contexts where the agent is expected to deeply internalize seemingly arbitrary routines (e.g. a warehouse fulfillment worker). Needless to say, athletes are much more able to "focus" than warehouse workers.

I suspect that it may be statistically significant that, in the athlete's case, their ability to "focus" is deeply related to how emotionally fulfilling their tasks are perceived to be.

In other words, we should expect wildly divergent degrees of "ability to focus on work" depending on the type of work we are discussing.

To me, this is the crux of the Developer Experience movement: give me meaningful work, and I'll give you inspired/concentrated labor; give me bullshit, fruitless, clickbait concerns, and I'll give you bare minimum effort.

Well said. I think your observation about the centrality of meaning not only rings true in the specific case of developer experience but also echoes the meaning crisis endemic to modern American life.

Put another way, the capacity for human accomplishment in the context of WWII or the Apollo Program boggles the mind somewhat less when you consider how much these projects meant to the people involved.

The meaning vacuum is distorting the culture beyond bullshit jobs, too, as is increasingly visible in people losing themselves in ideology or hatred for The Other. For many, these feel like the most foundational things they have to believe in.

I would suggest as well that the components of athletics, e.g. running, is something that we're evolutionarily used to - being a better runner would mean you would be less likely to be eaten/more likely to eat. Arbitrary tasks have no evolutionary advantage to them, so there's no a) biological systems for getting good at them or b) positive emotional feedback to incentivise getting good at them. If we'd had the same factory work for millions of years, we might have some mechanisms to enjoy or get good at it.

> evolutionary advantage

> If we'd had the same factory work for millions of years, we might have some mechanisms to enjoy or get good at it.

This is simply NOT how evolution works. It's not intelligent and does not super-optimize a species for some task.

It's very chaotic and messy and constantly gets stuck into local minima/maxima where species are barely "good enough" to survive.

Furthermore, it works only on a set of physical attributes. There isn't a set of genes for liking repetitive work, or pop music, or similar abstract psychological traits.

This is why the infamous eugenics experiments of the 1940s could not develop superhuman psychological traits.

Please provide evidence to the contrary instead of silent downvotes.

This reminds me heavily of the concept of flow, which (by my second hand knowledge) is an established scientific field of study.

The difference is also that with warehouse type jobs, you're always on edge while practically bored/unengaged. These are both highly unpleasant feelings draining you much faster.

Can you provide a reference that elaborates on "flow"?

https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/flow-the-psychology-of-optimal...

> with warehouse type jobs, you're always on edge while practically bored/unengaged

This isn't always true. "On edge" might depend on how shitty the management/culture is. And I personally can enjoy my time doing simple labor tasks. It can be a great time to enjoy music, podcasts, or just think.

The main difference in focus is that sports is a "game". In a game the rules do not change.

If rules can not change your subconscious start doing it if you repeat it again and again, leaving the conscious free to just focus on improving a little bit.

That is a natural thing and we love it. If you go hunting or fishing every day you develop habits and getting out and getting food becomes easier and easier over time, because those activities do not change. That is the essence of "flow".

The essence of positive phycology is knowing what is happening so you can do something about it. You don't need to see yourself as a passive victim(give me X) but you can be the main actor in your life.

One of the best skills I have ever acquired is the ability to say No from unreasonable request on me or my team. The most shocking thing was that people understand it way better than I expected.

If they give you BS as work and you know you are going to do a bad job, you should tell those who give it, instead of them getting bad quality work later.

> There is something very draining about 'menial' physical labor.

That can be true, depending on the context.

But there's something about doing physical tasks that is satisfying and dignified. I used to bus tables when I first started working. It was certainly menial and low status, but there was camaraderie with others doing that job or similar ones. It felt good to do something real. And although it was physically exhausting to come home at 2am smelling of restaurant, it was easy to have a hard sleep and a total reset the next day.

What is far more draining and harmful is menial cognitive labor without tangible meaning, working under arbitrary rules and oppressive oversight. Even if it's "easy" it can lead to burnout, to feeling that you don't matter or are invisible and replaceable like a commodity. These effects persist and last, there's no waking up in the morning and feeling a sense of "reset". I think some people just get crushed by this. I do. Others seem to thrive if they can find a headspace where they can do that job while being mentally checked-out.

My first “real” job was dishwasher with extra kitchen duties as time allowed, and bussing if it got too busy for the waitresses to keep up. The chef was a hard-ass but had the work ethic to back it up.

It was actually a pretty high status job for a 14 year old in a small town. Minimum wage plus a small but fair share of tips so if you had to hustle you knew it’d be rewarded.

I couldn’t do that kind of work now physically, but it remains my favorite among the many jobs I’ve had.

> There is something very draining about 'menial' physical labor.

I wonder to what extent it's related to precisely the fact that physical labour is ever more seen as "menial".

I've had programming jobs like that

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