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Comment by jedberg | Hacker News Reader

This last summer/fall really put things in perspective for me. We did a major outdoor renovation at our house, which involved landscapers, plumbers, electricians, and carpenters.

Every day these guys would show up at 8am and long sleeves and jeans and hard hats, work super hard, pee in a port-a-potty, and be exhausted by the end of the day. They worked out in the 100 degree heat as well as the rain as the job got near the end. Luckily the bosses were pretty cool and provided them with decent food for lunch and plenty of drinks (but I still offered them food and drinks too).

I on the other hand was working at my desk in my air conditioned house in comfortable clothes. A few times a day I'd put on my flip-flops and wander around outside to check on their work, ask a few questions, and then head back in when it got too hot.

And a couple of times the plumbing sprung a leak just as they were getting ready to leave, despite their best efforts to get all the risky work done early, and they they had to stay super late. Once the plumber was here till midnight after arriving at 8am.

I used to have thoughts about how it would be nice to have a job with totally spelled out requirements that end at 5pm and then you have the rest of the day off. But no more. I'd much rather work at my comfy desk inside and deal with the occasional call at 9pm on a Saturday than deal with what they all went through.

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There's something so insidiously, backhandedly condescending about tech workers pining for the simplicity of an honest day's job that drives me nuts.

Yes, there are almost always jobs with less strenuous requirements on time, fewer requirements and late nights. But the average tech worker has a pretty good gig. And if they don't they can go down the street in 2022 and get one.

Trades scratch a similar itch to development in some ways - you're working with a set of tools and generally always building or working on the same projects. Yes, it's tactile, it gets you something palpable in the end. Yes, like software development you get that dopamine hit when you've built something nice. But there are late nights, big jobs that go too long, crappy coworkers and clients, because ... it's a professional job.

Did this behavior start with the coda of Office Space or has it always been a thing?

I think it's a manifestation of the inherent feeling that many of us developers are doing something mostly useless compared to others. We know that the world could be different and we could be working jobs that are physically and/or mentally difficult but also fair and useful. Ursula K. Le Guin puts it thus, from her novel "This Dispossessed":

"A child free from the guilt of ownership and the burden of economic competition will grow up with the will to do what needs doing and the capacity for joy in doing it. It is useless work that darkens the heart. The delight of the nursing mother, of the scholar, of the successful hunter, of the good cook, of the skillful maker, of anyone doing needed work and doing it well—this durable joy is perhaps the deepest source of human affection, and of sociality as a whole."

I can't understand that one. Software fascinates me since I was a child by how universally useful it is. Even for the more manual stuff, computer is still a hyper-useful tool.

Carpentry is useful, but if you are spending months making a small part you think no one uses or cares about for a lot of money, you might feel useless.

Same things goes with anything really.

I think it's much, much more common in the world of software to build things that either no one uses, or fades out pretty quickly.

There's a world of difference between taking a week to ship a new button to Chrome at Google (low impact, but at least high visibility) and creating a project from scratch over the course of months for it to be killed off by or not work out for the stakeholders (no impact AND no/low visibility). This happens with most projects.

On the other hand, building or fixing something physical you know that at least you're solving a real problem for someone, and it will probably last them a while.

Software is constantly churning and evolving precisely because such evolutions are not limited by tools, materials, or constraints of the physical world. Way better for creativity, but rarely leaves us devs feeling proud of the work we've done

A similar idea was expressed by Marx, who referred to it as estranged labour. Forgive the lengthy quote:

> the object which labor produces – labor's product – confronts it as something alien, as a power independent of the producer. The product of labor is labor which has been embodied in an object, which has become material: it is the objectification of labor. Labor’s realization is its objectification. Under these economic conditions this realization of labor appears as loss of realization for the workers; objectification as loss of the object and bondage to it; appropriation as estrangement, as alienation.

> [...]

> the worker is related to the product of labor as to an alien object. For on this premise it is clear that the more the worker spends himself, the more powerful becomes the alien world of objects which he creates over and against himself, the poorer he himself – his inner world – becomes, the less belongs to him as his own.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts...

Very ironic that the USSR ended up forcing most people into state-chosen jobs. I think it's nice to think of some ideal future where everyone works on what they want to work on but society needs people to do the dirty work that nobody wants to do. Janitor, garbageman, sewer maintenance, warehouse worker, etc. A lot of Marx's ideas are just ideas, not anything that could ever be realized in the real world.

Whatever you can say of his prescriptions, many of his descriptions and diagnoses are relevant.

In said hypothetical world, the crappy jobs would come with the highest prestige, because nobody would want to do them, so the payoff would need to be something other than reducing the risk of starvation.

Yes! I’m rereading this now. That book is an endless wellspring of reminders about what truly matters.

The Dispossessed was a fantastic book but you're taking away the wrong thing if you're using Anarresti propaganda to sum up the work. The full title of the book is "The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia" and Anarres has many problems.

Good point! Though, I wasn't trying to sum up the book nor was I endorsing the quoted sentences as gospel

"Half of my software budget is wasted, I just don't know which half."

I suppose there's a sense in the trades that you know somebody wants something before you do it, because they've asked for it. And you can usually see where it fits into the bigger picture because the interconnected pieces are visually and physically connected.

I get a similar satisfaction from being a part time musician. When I show up to play music, it's because somebody has hired me to play music, and within the band there's a specific part that's filled by my work. I also know the quality of my own work instantly as I do it. I love music as an art, but on the bandstand, I'm a tradesman first and an artist second.

Working in a tech field, it can be hard to know if what you're making is ever going to matter to anybody, and it's possible to do negative work in the sense of costing more than what it returns. That can be frustrating.

I had a manager who once abandoned software engineering to become a jeweler. There’s definitely a patronizing romanticizing of the trades in threads like this, but the yearning to switch to physical work doesn’t have to be fulfilled only by plumber/carpenter/electrician roles mentioned here. There are plenty of other jobs that require more physical work, from aestheticians to dentistry.

No doubt. I think that sitting in room all days drags on some people the way climbing up a pole with equipment all day might drag on another.

And sometimes you just want something radically different. But don't pretend it's simple enough that we - the brilliant computer and maths people - could easily just start doing it. I think that's where the patronizing comes in. Any professional job requires training and experience.

Sure, but the point still stands is that people seem to be yearning for an alternative to computer-only work, and there are perhaps more feasible alternatives out there to the Office Space ending ideal.

As far as training goes- software engineering doesn’t seem particularly rigorous in providing it compared to other disciplines.

Nothing condescending here. After my first twenty years in tech I did feel the urge for a change. Why be just a tech worker?

Complexity is no indicator of worth to society, nor is salary.

> Trades scratch a similar itch to development in some ways - you're working with a set of tools

I'd say the major difference is that in the trades, the tools actually work.

Having just had fun with replacing a bathroom door knob that involved far more power tools than expected I'm not sure I can agree.

The tools might work. But then you discover the plumber from 20 years ago did something crazy. Or the wiring makes a left turn in the space between 1st and 2nd floor for some reason. Thee dimmer switch that was $15 and should have taken 10 min to install actually does not have enough clearance behind it because a drain pipe is there, and so you need a special smaller size electrical box or you need to cut holes in the wall. Etc, etc.

Just another day in the life of a legacy enterprise project maintainer.

Seriously. I bought a house to renovate and the painting turned into a drywall refactoring thanks to the chemical peel used by the previous owners…I fixed up one bathroom that actually needs a tear out just to make a deadline for move in…bath tear out was pushed out to the next major update planned…

Sure, and they can also chop your hand off or otherwise seriously harm you.

Fuck up something handling PII and the GDPR fines can seriously harm you...

The fact that everyone is breaching the GDPR left and right and that Equifax is still around suggests the opposite.

Looking at all the documented (not that many) large GDPR fines, I haven't noticed any that are the result of a company (much less a developer) accidentally 'fucking up' - they are all the result of an intentional policy or an unethical management decision intentionally screwing people.

If you simply fuck up during your development, the most you'll get in practice is a letter from the regulator requiring you to change the fucked up thing; Fines arrive when management refuses to change the fucked up thing and tries to invent a loophole instead.

Comparing the permanent loss of a limb to a possible fine to a corporation for mishandling data is a bit out of touch.

Ever since their power tool accident they’ve been all out of touch…

Not really. They’ll harm the company, if anyone notices, but not you personally.

I feel like I’d sometimes like to try a job like a carpenter or builder, but simply to try building something in real life, rather than our often intangible products.

What's stopping you? You don't even have to give up working in tech.

I started learning joinery a year ago. I'm still terrible at it by professional standards, but I've made some bespoke furniture pieces for our house that would have cost 2-3x what I spent in tools and materials, and I enjoyed the process.

It's definitely something you can do in your spare time, and even if you don't decide to go pro, you've still learned a valuable life skill.

> Did this behavior start with the coda of Office Space or has it always been a thing?

No, it's such a cliche that's why Office Space chose to use it.

The movie Lost in America explores this theme much more generally.

The funniest thing about the end of Office Space is that by "dropping out" of software during the Y2k era and entering the construction field, the protagonist is just swapping one bubble for another, software for housing.

The alternate ending changes the tenor of the entire film with just one line of dialogue. Peter is probably dissatisfied on a deeper level than any job could fix. Maybe he would find meaning as an entrepreneur or travelling or dropping out...

https://youtu.be/XK43Ureuiqc

> The alternate ending changes the tenor of the entire film with just one line of dialogue.

This also happens with Kiki's Delivery Service. It makes the English dub much, much better than the Japanese original.

It may be self-selecting tech workers who feel excessive stress from their job, or, really are disastisfied and ready for a change.

I can confess to passing the person holding the STOP and SLOW sign at a construction site, and even saying out loud, "Now that's a job I could do."

But when the fog clears, and the paycheck lands in the bank, it's, well... nah. I'd rather put up with the stress or ennui and have the cash.

Sometimes I consider going back to the trades (I have enough experience I could easily do so), but no way would I want to be a flagger. The boredom would kill me by noon the first day.

I was one of those ad sign kids as a teenager. It was mentally brutal. Thank God for podcasts.

These people make $90 an hour in Australia. It’s definitely tempting.

I've heard the tram drivers make $150k ...

Ah yes, the common misconception that trades are simplistic!

Most trades (!including plumbing!) have VASTLY more stringent requirements than tech, are often more mentally stimulating, and yes, quite rewarding.

Disclaimer: I've worked in software for ~9 years and worked in trades before that. ASE master certified auto technician, father is a master electrician, uncles are contractors. I'll probably become a plumber.

I feel tech was more fulfilling before all the bullshit agile rituals and related nonsense. The past 10 years things have really gone downhill.

Through attrition and universities pumping out CS degrees as fast as they can since the early 90's, at any given point almost half of us have less than 5 years of experience. When half the people don't know any better, it's really hard to use democracy to get anything 'good' done. Either this hasn't changed much over that interval or the people who are fond of pointing this out aren't tracking statistics. Whether it's actually true or only somewhat true, I think we deal with the consequences all the time.

What I can say is have more hobbies, and perhaps we (those who care) should be working to differentiate a genre (vertical, size, location, something) as being better, so it feels like less of a game of chance every time people are looking for 'better'.

>> .. at any given point almost half of us have less than 5 years of experience. When half the people don't know any better, it's really hard to use democracy to get anything 'good' done.

This is really a problem, there's inherent value in egalitarianism or democracy, but perhaps due to a lack of deeply technical managers it often plays as you say hard to get anything good done due to bike-shedding and not being led by experience.

Did this behavior start with the coda of Office Space or has it always been a thing?

A big aspect of Marxism is that labor has been alienated from their production in the age of industrialization, so I’d say it’s been a thing for a while.

I've read a lot of Marx and I think this is ultimately less about alienation and more about guilt.

> There's something so insidiously, backhandedly condescending about tech workers pining for the simplicity of an honest day's job that drives me nuts.

Agreed. SO recently left a career in academia to get a job in tech as an entry level software developer. Says this is the easiest job they've ever had in their life, and wondered why they didn't start sooner.

Developers have no idea how difficult even other white collar jobs are, let alone blue collar work that involves physical labor and the outdoors.

For a couple of years I worked at a rental shop at night and on weekends after my full-time IT job. It was the best thing ever because I got the feeling of actually getting something done, even if it was repetitive work. Not using my brain and not worrying about anything was nice.

I also temporarily quit my IT job because I felt burned, got a job cleaning floors and washing clothes. Again I loved the work.

If it weren't for the pay I wouldn't work in this field. I'm hoping to quit for good in a few years, switching careers doesn't make much sense at this point.

Will have to third this. I have friends and acquaintances I talk to regularly from all walks of life - from construction workers to tradesmen/mechanics, all the way to bankers and the like.

Out of all of them, I have the "best" job in terms of what's expected of me on a day-in-day-out basis. The biggest problem I feel us tech-workers have is that we compare our "bad" with their "good".

On a good day, a construction worker may get there, do their work for the amount of hours stipulated, and leave the work at work. That's our perspective. What we do not often see is the time they spend worrying about the weather conditions (if you're painting outside, can't do it in the rain), or whether this or that material will be on time/to spec, or that you sprained something yesterday and you really need to haul heavy stuff around today, and it cannot be delayed because people are relying on it being done, and this might mean your injury will worsen and you might not be able to work for a while.

We can get bad days. And our bad days can get pretty shitty. I won't begrudge anyone who'd love to leave the tech sector; I've often thought about it myself. But from hearing my friends in other professions talk about their bad days? Mine don't occur so often, and when they do, are often not as bad.

It's very difficult to deny our privilege when we talk to someone who works all day in the searing heat, and our day consisted of turning on our laptop at 11, running some Terraform scripts, making it to our favourite restaurant for sushi, enjoying an extended lunch while monitoring some deployments on our work tablet, and having a meeting while walking on a nearby park to negotiate internal deadlines. I've often been embarrassed to describe my day to some of my friends.

> I've often been embarrassed to describe my day to some of my friends.

Nearly every bad day at work I had ended with beers + sometimes a huge (and expensive) party. This is lifestyle comparable to high-level directors in other fields. No wonder it's totally unrelatable experience to them - they usually find the boss of their company relatable too.

* don't find the boss relatable.

It may be easy for some but lots of people try a coding boot camp and realize it’s hard and they hate every moment of it.

My father was a corporate finance executive for 25 years. He hated the political drama, attention to detail, mundane routine, long hours and being indoors all day. He quit and started roofing. And loved being outside.

It’s only condescending, because you’re assuming a social hierarchy where software development is more prestigious or desirable than one of the trades and that physical labor is harder than non-physical labor. The implication then is that a software developer wishing to become a plumber is ungrateful for their “better” job and naive for wanting a “harder” and “worse” job mistakingly believing it to be easier.

Would you feel the same way about a plumber wishing for the job software developer? Would you call out a plumber for being condescending in wishing for the “easy” job of a software developer?

The more accurate interpretation is that all people have frustration with their job and start to imagine an alternative that would eliminate the frustrations.

To be honest yes I would consider it a little condescending. No doubt they would be similarly creating a utopian vision of what our jobs entail and come at it from the angle of “boy wish I could just sit around all day doing nothing”

> It’s only condescending, because you’re assuming a social hierarchy where software development is more prestigious or desirable than one of the trades and that physical labor is harder than non-physical labor.

I'm very confused by this because I'm arguing the exact opposite: that people in tech romanticize these "simple" trades of the people.

> Would you call out a plumber for being condescending in wishing for the “easy” job of a software developer?

Absolutely. If they treated it like something you can just step down into without putting in the work, which is precisely how it's positioned when devs daydream about it.

> I'm very confused by this because I'm arguing the exact opposite: that people in tech romanticize these "simple" trades of the people.

I live in a climate where normal (I.e. not extreme) temp fluctuates between -25C and +30C. You can add 5-10C to either end for the above/below average days. There is absolutely nothing romantic or glamorous about working outside in those temps. This “romanticism” you speak of, while very real, often comes from a place of ignorance and inexperience. I’ve done enough physical labour in my time in reasonable weather than I see no reason for me ever want to make a career out of it. Similar goes for interior work, I’ve done the “good” and “mediocre” jobs as DIY enough to know I would not want to do it for a living.

Your overly focused on the perception that any job is simple. What’s really going on is people see the stress and difficulty of their current job and underestimate other jobs. It’s not condescending, it’s just self focused and naive.

I am pointing this out because by understanding why people actually complain it will deepen empathy for the complaining person and also avoid creating a pseudo classist framing of the situation which is actually not only inaccurate but harmful for understanding the people involved.

> I am pointing this out because by understanding why people actually complain it will deepen empathy for the complaining person and also avoid creating a pseudo classist framing of the situation which is actually not only inaccurate but harmful for understanding the people involved.

You misinterpreted my original point and when I attempted to clarify you're now telling me what I'm "too focused on," as if I don't understand that all people have stress.

So I'm finding this reply a bit ironic. Maybe it's supposed to be and I'm just not picking up on the bit.

You ascribed some malice to my original post that wasn't there and are now doubling down. Why?

I think it is more than just condescension. In job's like plumbing or carpentry, it is much easier to ascertain when your work is done and if it is good. The workmen on a house remodel have a fixed(ish) scope and at the end of the day the homeowner is either happy with the work or not. The outcomes are tangible and quickly ascertained. On the other hand, when you start work on a software project, it will take months or possibly years to know if the strategy or architecture you chose pays off. The roadmap concept also means software is never done and there is always more code that needs to be written.

In the software world, you don't get the satisfaction of knowing that you have done something well in the same visceral way physical trades provide.

> There's something so insidiously, backhandedly condescending about tech workers pining for the simplicity of an honest day's job that drives me nuts.

I worked with the county doing road construction and logging for seven years, then was a teacher for a couple years after that. Now I work at a cushy FAANG job.

I still miss both of my previous jobs often. Construction wasn't super meaningful, but there was a focus on making quality artifacts that isn't really the same in software. (Software is too complex, too large, and has too many constraints.) Working with physical implements is nice. I miss knowing the weather more intimately, and being physically exhausted at the end of the day.

Teaching was very meaningful, but emotionally exhausting. If the pay hadn't been terrible and if I had found a supportive administration, I'd probably be happier teaching. I miss working with children, being a part of a community.

Having worked these sort of jobs and having enjoyed them, I don't think it's condescending at all. I think there may be a bit of ignorance there. If you didn't grow up doing physical labor (I grew up on a farm) then you likely will have a hard time adapting to physical exertion/pain. And you have to recognize that you'll likely encounter physical injuries, especially later in your career. (In my shortish stint, I managed to injure my shoulder, and it still affects me). But if SWEs still like the idea, then they should give it a shot for a year. Software will still be there.

A couple issues I see. The extremely abstract nature of software can make progress sometimes seem very ephemeral, and make those dopamine hits hard to find. Ever spend a week or two on a bug going in circles with no progress? It's maddening, can seriously impact stress levels and sleep, and be very bad for your health. I think this is why some opine for a job where you step back at the end of the day and marvel at the work you did in the physical world. I personally know I get a great satisfaction when I complete a project around my house, and it's a very different feeling from when a unit test finally passes.

Then there's also the problem of not using your body. Up until extremely recently in evolutionary history, we used our bodies and brains together. It turns out office work can be just as bad for your body as swinging a hammer or welding pipes due to inactivity. It's really a dehumanizing way to live. Certainly you can try to balance the scales by hitting the gym after work, but it can be a struggle when you're fried from the day.

One of my really good friends dropped out of his chemical engineering degree in the last semester to be a landscape gardener, and seems to enjoy it much more. It's been nearly a decade so far. He hasn't gone back.

The tech meme of dropping out to pick up a trade is pretty funny at times, especially when it's coming from people who couldn't change a doorknob, but I don't think jobs are one-size-fits-all, and I do think some people would be happier with a job that requires doing hard work outside.

I’m a constant “I’m gonna quit this shit and go farm alfalfa” comic. Not unique, but I grew up in the trades working with family.

The biggest thing that jumps out to me about programming vs my father’s work is the agency. He goes into a home, diagnoses, and fixes an issue. No MBA / PM / Scrum Bags to needlessly insert themselves into a process and cause issues. Contrasted with most jobs where I get delivered a small chunk of an issue (as a Senior / Lead) which robs me of my agency as a professional and often time just leads to more delays and defects driven by a lack of a coherent vision passed down. Rather abstract, but infuriating when I damn well know I could have delivered higher-quality and ahead of schedule. Providing “Commander’s Intent” is a very real necessity.

I don’t know that tangible vs. intangible is a factor, for me at least, making web / mobile oriented systems. Hell, even a really good shell script to codify a workflow for coworkers is insanely satisfying.

Other than that, human interaction. Having a human be genuinely satisfied that you helped them with their issue they couldn’t have solved... that’s rewarding at a level rarely ever get.

The big offer is comfort (both in workplace and in salary) is the primary offer - perhaps to many friction is the spice of life.

You can get more of the agency you describe as an independent contractor working on smaller projects, or in early stage startups. There's nobody breathing over your shoulder, just a "give me an estimate, let me know when you think you can get it done" sorta deal. I do enjoy that work better, but it's not as consistent.

The scrum-driven, jira-driven "small chunk" style of development is kinda depressing to me. It wasn't always like this, and there's so many new folks in tech many don't remember it used to be different.

I don't see why it's condescending. If you have worked in tech your entire life, in an office in front of a computer then it's completely okay IMO to wonder what it would be like working a trade.

For instance, my entire family works in mining, some riggers, some electricians and others environmental surveying. I am the only one that works in front of a computer all day. When they get home from work, that's it they switch off, no emails, no calls, no reports to write late at night due to a delayed project. Their work shifts to another group of employees to continue or finish. They come home tired and sleep way better than I do.

I think about it all the time and what it would be like to work with my hands in a trade, sure we all work late sometimes and that's not industry specific. But its the feeling of working in a field with your hands as opposed to your words.

It's also easy for tradesman to look at what we do and think its easy too. But at the end of the day there's no perfect job and some appeal better to others.

> it's completely okay IMO to wonder what it would be like working a trade.

That's not the issue. The issue is assuming it's something you could "just do" to remove the stress in your life, as though the job is trivial.

People inevitably develop unreasonable fantasies of what life could be in a field / relationship / situation far from their own. I feel you're being a bit unnecessarily cynical about how bad this kind of daydreaming is.

Yes, if you were an actual plumber who spent half a day tugging diapers out of a 2 inch pipe, and some dumbass hipster you run into later tells you how glamorous your job is, that might be a bit annoying. But people in all sorts of fields experience that annoyance to some degree.

Anecdotally, I have two friends I went to college with who daydreamed about quitting their desk jobs and working a trade. One of them, I worked with on construction crews during school breaks, and he'd talk about how much he preferred that to college. He ended up in an office job anyway.

The other guy didn't have that trade experience, he just felt he'd like it better. He did some white collar work after graduation, hated it. Later he went on to work in a couple trades until finding one that fit; he went through a very extensive licensing process, and now makes good money and spends very little time behind a desk. And he's very happy with that -- so it does work out for some people.

I would not call it condescending.

Frankly, I hold a few roles and have for years. Some of those involve flat out making stuff, wielding tools, taking a shower at the end of the day type stuff. Others are business, development, some engineering electronics, software.

For me, the variety is good, and it reflects how I came up in rural America, where basically you learned how to fix your own car, help on the farm, do what it takes because few had the money to spend to solve problems. And no judgement on those who have that. I have that today. It's just that I didn't then, and the skills came along with the scene.

I'm writing this because there are plenty of times where I look for something I'm not currently doing, or involved with. The reasons vary too:

Less stress

More structure

Right now: less liability / risk though I expect a reward for that happening

More people

Less people

No people.

Any of us, whether we are in construction, software, electronics, plumbing, mechanics, all reach a point where we can nail it. If we are lucky, we are exposed to a few different disciplines and can reach that point a few times in our lives.

If anything, I would call said "pining" boredom, or seeking perspective of some kind, just a change up, if nothing else.

Personally, I feel that is OK, and encourage it in my peers, help them where I can.

Stretch a little. Feels good sometimes. Sometimes it's regrettable too.

You are better for having done it though.

As someone who does/did tech jobs and manual jobs, i think it all depends. I know some people in tech who get paid insane amounts of money to sit at a desk and pretend to do something, and some of these people would not last an hour in a manual job. But i also know some developers/artists in tech industry who work 60h weeks to be paid under 2K€/mo and are on the verge of burnout, and these people would probably be very happy to find any better job, whether in tech industry or not.

I think your experience of tech workers is not representative of the tech industry in general: for every high-paid IT person, there's 2 or 3 (maybe 50?) who're getting paid peanuts and have very indecent working conditions, and i personally find it somewhat condescending to suggest it's just an isolated incident and it's so easy to just walk down the street to find better work conditions.

In fact, that very sentence was pronounced by our slaver-in-chief Emmanuel Macron and was widely derided as condescending. It's hard for people to find a job, especially if you don't have high connections. It's even harder to find a decent job: to find a quasi-slavery posting you can just walk down to any luxurious restaurant/hotel but to find lawful/respectful working conditions, i still don't know of a magic formula.

I don’t think it’s condescending I think most humans weren’t made to sit behind a desk all day

Yet, in the deep country side if France, I regularly see former engineer, or business school guys selling fruits at the market, opening restaurants or café, repairing old bikes in a workshop, etc. I don't think it's condescending, I just think it's an actual thing.

A friend of nice from school stopped coding to open a brewery and I'm regularly considering starting a street food thing. Even started to get some of the gears sand the certifications...

My "retirement plan" is a book store/coffee shop. I don't want to code professionally forever.

Beware that those tend not to be very profitable if not loss making.

I tell people it's how I plan on losing money when I'm old.

> I used to have thoughts about how it would be nice to have a job with totally spelled out requirements that end at 5pm and then you have the rest of the day off

In addition to your other good points, I used to work construction, and it was never like this. Requirements were not spelled out, and we constantly had to deal with unexpected issues, or ridiculous homeowners with dumb ideas. Timelines and deadlines were harsh, and you were often blocked by somebody else's work, but were still expected to finish by a given date.

I worked construction jobs summers during college (family in the business).

On the plus side, it really is satisfying to be able to see the results of your work at the end of the day, nearly every day. Progress is visible and real.

On the downside, construction in the summer is rough work. You can be on rooftops working with materials or tools that make it even hotter. There's lots of exhausting carrying heavy things from here to there. There's incredibly long hours (10 hour days is within the norm, 6 day 12 hour schedules aren't rare, and 16 hour days not unheard of). In any decent construction job that's a ton of overtime pay, which really adds up, but it's also exhausting. A 6/12 schedule is basically work/sleep/work. Great way to save money for the coming school year, terrible way to make a living long term.

I miss being able to see my work. And to be able to drive by 20 years later and point and say "Yep, I built that." Don't underestimate the pride that brings.

But I don't regret my career choice at all. Construction is viscerally satisfying in a lot of ways, but it's not how I want to spend my days.

Your contractor, on the other hand, may well have got a few rounds of golf in during the day time.

A neighbor owns a painting company. He goes around the various job sites in the morning, sees that everyone has their marching orders for the day, returns in the afternoon to check in on the progress. In between the morning and afternoon though? He does what he pleases.

I believe he started the company with a buddy, the two of them doing the painting. Things grow though, you hire guys, your role changes (and your income too).

I don't really want to be a manager, though. I want to be retired.

Don't we all?

Nope. Some of us are perfectly happy doing what we're doing, and to continue with a balance of work and not work for a long long time.

I'm exactly in this position, yet when I said in another thread that I was quite content with my salary that's mid-tier for Seattle (but fantastically wealthy in a lot of the rest of the country), at a company that's all but certain to be around for at least the rest of my working lifetime, doing work to enable that company to do work that I consider useful (we're a medical practice group), and had no plans to change, I got incredulous replies.

One of the things I legitimately struggle to understand about other people is the willingness to exchange an irreplaceable thing, time, for a very replaceable thing, money, and suffer while doing it when other choices exist. The "when" in that bit is very important. A lot of people do not have that choice, and I understand why they continue; there's no other option. But for people who do what we do and how we do it, why chase the brass ring for so long? You don't have to suffer at Amazon, no amount of stock options are worth it. You will never get back that night you spent working on that one last thing instead of going home to your partner or kids or friends. The marginal impact of another $5,000 when you already make $125,000 in a year is very small.

And, as a bonus, not only are you helping yourself, you're helping the rest of our industry. Since we are largely allergic to unions in this industry, the only leverage we have is if enough people finally realize that it is possible to have a good work as part of a good life.

No, money is fungible, and its marginal utility only decreases when you have enough to retire. Another 5k is another 5k, meaning another 2 months that you don't have to labor. Dollars linearly correspond to future free time.

You really will get back that night you spent working: it likely afforded you many more nights retired, free.

A day when you are younger isn't necessarily equivalent to a day when you are older. There are all kinds of potentially fun physical activities I might have done when I was younger if I had had more time that 40 years later I would not try because injuries have bigger impact and take longer to heal now.

> its marginal utility only decreases when you have enough to retire.

If the only thing you value is retirement and complete freedom indefinitely. Personally I'd much rather have an extra day on my weekend now, and have to work an extra year at the same pace I'm working at now (and enjoy it too) rather than minmax to the point of sacrificing everything for the next 15 years to finally be able to do what I want to do - which is what I have right now.

Well, yes, owning things is definitely the best job, regardless of what industry you're in. It's not the typical path for any job, though.

I know, but I think for most people in this thread, there is an upward path for that.

I often wonder why the other painters working for him don't go off and start their own painting companies. Perhaps a few will. But I suspect many of them would not enjoy or be comfortable with spread sheets, business taxes, work insurance and some of the other things that go along with owning the company.

I suspect my neighbor, like many of us, fond those things to be fairly un-intimidating and so he owns.

Same thing for software engineers and companies.

But then you’re a business owner and a manager. It’s mostly not golf. As I’m sure anyone who has had a business here already knows very well.

> I often wonder why the other painters working for him don't go off and start their own painting companies

I've got a very good friend who worked as a painter, did the 8-3 5 days a week gig for probably 8 years or so. He had no interest in running a business, managing clients, dealing with costing, estimates, etc. He just wanted to show up, paint and leave at 3.

> and some of the other things that go along with owning the company.

One of the big differences is what happens if there's no work, or if someone stiffs you or if the work required is substantially more than the estimate? In all three of those cases a business owner is in trouble, but the painter doesn't care.

> Well, yes, owning things is definitely the best job, regardless of what industry you're in.

Unpopular opinion: being an owner is hard. You think it's easy until $80k doesn't come in on time and you have to make payroll by mortgaging your house, or you have to wake up at 2 am because a developer got arrested by INS (even though they were a US citizen), or you have to deal with a $150K medical bill that your insurance wouldn't cover... etc... Or an employee tries to make a copy of your code and launch a competing business...

Life is hard.

I wish I remembered where I read this: "The definition of business is problems. The people who are the most successful are the ones who have the most fun solving them."

Ownership != Control. Most outright owners are in control, but it doesn't necessarily follow. I mean, if you're not in control, you still have to rely on those that are not to mess it up, and there may come a time when you have to do the dirty work to make sure they don't.

Even when you are in control, you really are counting on others to get things done. Putting your name on the paycheck only gets you so far :-)

Depends, but I wouldn’t bet on it. My dad owned a small contracting company, and while he took the odd afternoon off to take me to a movie or cool off when it got too hot, that was more than made up for by Saturday morning client meetings, after work lumber runs, and tons of behind the scenes planning. And even if you do make it to the point where contracting becomes “cushy” job, you’ve very likely destroyed your body while working to get there. I’ve occasionally dreamt of restarting his business and growing it, but then I spend an afternoon with him fixing a plumbing issue or doing drywall and I remember how good I’ve got it.

> A neighbor owns a painting company. He goes around the various job sites in the morning, sees that everyone has their marching orders for the day, returns in the afternoon to check in on the progress. In between the morning and afternoon though? He does what he pleases.

It's no different in Tech. What is hard about being a developer is that you are building. The analogy between your friend who owns and manages a painting company, isn't really that far off. As long as your are primarily responsible for getting the work done... well, the expectation will be closed tickets, shipped features.

I can own a software company and go play golf every afternoon while my employees write the code.

Yeah, I genuinely do not understand what it is that drives people like the reddit OP to think that tradespeople somehow have it better than software folks. It's like they have never actually paid attention to how absolutely grueling plumbing/roofing/fencing/etc. is.

"Constant need to stay up to date" is actually one of the things I really like about this field, because it's one of the things that prevents the work from getting redundant, at least in the long run.

I don’t think they want to be tradespeople. I think they want to be artisans.

I’d say they already are artisans. Guy talks about needing to constantly study up to stay current. I imagine an artist just through creating is constantly getting more comfortable with their tools. Hokusai has a famous quote to this effect - basically saying he would have to live to 100+ to really practice enough to be proud of his work.

By artisan I meant specifically the concept of a craftsperson who creates small projects on demand at their own leisure, something both like the traditional concept of a village smith or potter, or the modern day craft fair equivalent or Etsy vendor.

In software, someone with their own software consultancy or an indie app developer could be equivalent.

It's just the masculine-coded, "left-brained" equivalent of "I wish I could quit my office job and do arts/crafts for a living", a sentiment I've heard a lot from friends outside the tech industry.

> Yeah, I genuinely do not understand what it is that drives people like the reddit OP to think that tradespeople somehow have it better than software folks. It's like they have never actually paid attention to how absolutely grueling plumbing/roofing/fencing/etc. is.

I have done a decent bit of network and systems administration in the past. I don't like it. It's hard on me sitting at a computer all day. Sometimes I got to go somewhere else and play with some equipment for a bit, but it was mostly a sit at a desk and stare at a screen kind of job. I really need the physical activity. Nowadays I repair rental houses for a number of property owners around here and I'll never go back, even if does pay a little less. I don't really find the work any more or less enjoyable overall, but I work less hours which means I have more time of my own, I sleep so much better at night, and my mental health has improved significantly. Also I get to work by myself which is real nice.

Edit: Many trade jobs are not like mine. I work my own hours, at my own pace, doing mostly light work. Every now and then I might get a helper. I was a roofer when I was much younger, and that's not something my body could handle anymore.

Some people enjoy hard work

Yeah lol... The apartment building next to mine was having some reconstruction and the guys working on the exterior saw into my office windows (5th story). I started talking to them, had a cigarette together when I saw them lighting up, shared my WiFi password with them, etc, just being friendly. After a few days the guys asked "so, do you ever work man, or are you one of those computer pussies?". I agreed I'm a computer pussy as I'd never want to do any of what I saw them doing, in all weathers, very very early in the morning as well as very late in the evening.

I've done manual labor. Mowed lawns for a guy who had his own company, he drove us around in the truck, we'd hit the grass with his mowers.

Worked fast food, retail. Been a dishwasher, bus boy....

I think there is something abut the manual labor that gives you a daily sense of accomplishment. The lawn work for sure. Arriving at a tatty yard, leaving it looking like a golf course.... That sort of day-to-day sense of achievement is much more rare in software development.

To be sure I ultimately chased the higher-paying software field. But when I would see the "grounds keepers" at the Apple campus, I was often a little envious....

> I think there is something abut the manual labor that gives you a daily sense of accomplishment.

I think a good part of it is also the fact that manual labor involves physical activity, which in itself can help to improve mood.

"Computer Pussy?.. no mate, computer hacker, and seeing as you all connected to my Wi-fi, my rent is covered for the next 2 months".... <Trollface>

Well I wanted to be a friend. They were cool to me, I was cool to them. It was all in good jest, with a bit of truth. ;-)

I guess but the phrasing that he used was unbelievably condescending and you just accepted it.

It's a hard thing to describe, but among people doing that kind of job, an insult like that can be a signal that you're "on the inside" of the group. It's pretty contextual and you have to listen to their tone of voice.

If you've seen Good Will Hunting, imagine Affleck and Damon's characters meeting again years down the road. Affleck might call Damon a "computer pussy" but both of them know Affleck is proud of Damon and would trade places with him if he had the skills.

Not to say "computer pussy" isn't potentially extremely condescending; just that such usage of profanity among laborers is often colloquially used to express sincere kinship and camaraderie.

Exactly - and I think it's the same among programmers, and more generally in male friend groups. It's a translation btw, but I think it's a fitting one.

Those guys aren't making the fabled plumber incomes either. You need to own the business for that.

Adding my own anecdote. Many years ago, I knew a scientist who complained constantly about the pressures of his job. He was a hobbyist carpenter and dreamed about doing that for a living. When he bought a house and hired a contractor to remodel it, he took a few months leave to join the construction crew. After he came back, he never complained about his job again.

OTOH I have a friend who switched from programming to air conditioner repair and is much much happier. they say the number one reason is when they stop for the day the job is over. They don't have their brain running over how they're going to solve/continue/finish the current task at their job

I have to say also that the "4 day workweek" idea tends to be embraced by such same people who have little idea what true laborious labor really is and can pontificate about it from their air conditioned offices.

And who I think would be unpleasantly surprised to find out certain inconveniences if everyone's available working hours were cut back by 1 day per week.

I don't think that's necessarily true, in fact I think what happens more often is the idea of a 4 day work week is dismissed by people such as yourself as it doesn't equally apply to everyone. A 5 day work week as is common now doesn't work for hospitality staff, for example. Does that mean that we should all work 4pm-3am Saturday shifts because that's when nightclub staff work? Of course not. do we argue that because patients in hospitals require 24/7 care that we all take up 4on-4off 12 hour shifts?

The argument for the 4 day workweek is that _many_ jobs would be performed just as efficiently as if they were 5 days per week, so they might as well be. If there was a compelling argument that hospital patients required 16 hours of care per day rather than 24, you can bet people would be suggesting dropping doctor and nurse shifts to 4x8 or 5x8 rather than 4x12 or whatever insanity they're doing right now.

I currently work with people¹ who quit construction & plumbing to retrain in tech for pretty much the reasons you describe. The two I work with right now are a dev manager and a support tech, another I'm no longer in contact with was a senior dev, none of them to my knowledge hanker to return to their old working lives.

None of them were top-level contractors, those who plan and hand out work to others, instead being people on the ground working on sometimes physically demanding tasks in all conditions and being the public face of the operation so sometimes interacting with difficult members of the public. Maybe if you get one of those management/middle-management jobs in construction the dynamic would be different, but then again you'll have a lot of the same problems that make me avoid management/middle-management jobs in our industry.

[1] and have known others

An old plumber friend wished he’d specialized. His idea was 1) live in a college town with tons and tons of student or vacation rentals (we already did) and 2) just do water heaters. 24 hour service and mark up for unscheduled installations.

Easy, clean, indoor work (generally) that you can get really good and you can pretty much name your price because everybody freaks when they don’t have hot water or it is leaking.

It's easy to pine for the good outcomes. The reality for most people is abusive bosses, wage theft, various exciting diseases from exposure and overwork without the health insurance or savings to deal with it.

This almost reads like a psyop piece to keep tech workers from rebelling.

Yeah there is a reward in working physically all day though, you feel better and sleep better. Working in the elements can also be fun.

Most people weren’t made to sit behind a desk all day.

Aren’t there jobs working in the trades that aren’t in construction? If you’re working on large-scale projects, you end up running into the “becoming a cog” problem anyway.

Yeah but even if it seems more comfortable to sit at a desk, it's much worse for your health, and also will make you feel worse already at the end of the day, so as a desk worker you're basically required to spend another hour after work every day exercising to make up for that. While the people doing the landscaping already got their exercise and fresh air.

Definitely not wearing out their back and knees

Did you stop to think before typing this comment or do you just fade in and out?

There's no requirement to sit at a desk, you can use a standing desk or in my case I actually use a treadmill at varying heights inclines and speeds while typing in a computer using an economic keyboard.

I did some landscaping work during summers while in university and it can be absolute hell on your joints - now stack that 40 hours a week for years.

Yeah... have fun with that.

Huh? Tell me that when you're painting the underside of a desk for 5 coats on a concrete shop floor and you don't have the clearance to sit up. Try installing a toilet when you have just enough crawl space next to the water inlet line to fit 3 handspans. Try sitting in the bed of a truck in the summer heat making sure that your ratchets are tied properly. As someone who grew up in a blue collar area, RSI is extremely common. Tennis elbow, worn knees, hip problems, back issues. That kind of hard labor is easy until your mid 20s and then turns more into a liability than exercise. You can always run on a treadmill to lose weight, but no amount of running will repair your knee.

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