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Comment by PragmaticPulp | Hacker News Reader

> What this has proven is working at amazon warehouse sucks, and is not sustainable.

This person went from a 23-year career sitting at a desk to doing physical labor all day. Any physical labor is going to take a toll on someone in their 40s who hasn't been doing physical labor.

I have a lot of people in my extended social circle who are in physical labor jobs. Amazon Warehouse jobs are always viewed as the "easy" fallback option: Doesn't pay as well as the hard physical labor jobs, but it's also viewed as the safe, comfortable option. Obviously, someone coming from a 20-year desk job is going to have a different perspective when thrust into a job with any physical demands.

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I also have people in my extended social circle who are in jobs that involve a lot of physical labor. As we all enter our late 30s-early 40s give or take, and they realize what a toll it's taking on their bodies, most of them are trying to get out of it, or have gotten out of it. They realize they aren't going to be physically able to do it another 25 years, and their bodies are going to get increasingly wrecked.

From what I've heard (including from acquaintances who have worked there), a job at an Amazon Warehouse takes a toll on your body for sure. For sure it's hardly alone in being like that.

(The people in my extended social circle who are in jobs involving physical labor are perhaps more likely than most physical laborers to have people in their social circle who sit at desks, and to be able to access networks and resources to shift out of physical labor to make a living).

> As we all enter our late 30s-early 40s give or take, and they realize what a toll it's taking on their bodies, most of them are trying to get out of it, or have gotten out of it. They realize they aren't going to be physically able to do it another 25 years, and their bodies are going to get increasingly wrecked

This is why when you see people who do physical labour well into their 40s they almost always have substance problems. Job takes its toll on them and drugs are what let them push through.

You can also write a very similar rant about how sedentary desk jobs are not sustainable with all the obesity related life shortening conditions it leads to :)

I think the takeaway is none of us is getting out of this alive.

We all will die eventually.

But till then I actually would like a healthy balance of mental and physical work.

That's something I think we need to spend a lot more time acknowledging. The preeminent idea makers that have created a lot of our modern framework of thinking about the world were not very good at answering the question "what's the point?"

Slow loss of ability to function and then death is inevitable. People are not going to be optimal workers their whole lives. We still need to keep the machines running, which is incredibly difficult and probably always will be due to the majority of us being limited bumbling morons, and the safeguards we need to put in place to prevent the morons who think they aren't morons from messing up the efforts of the minority of competent productive people hiding out there. But being the best worker for as long as you can is not the point of life.

This sounds trite to most modern thinkers, but it's not: genuine, actual, familial support, acceptance and loyalty between you and your tribe is something that can transcend the trials and tribulations of life and our inevitable death. Another ingredient in acceptance of the human condition is acknowledgment of the mysteries of the world and the strangeness of human perception and consciousness. Neither of those are sufficiently reflected upon in any organized manner like they used to be.

Written like someone whose knees have never been blown out on the job

Obesity and weight gain in general is mainly caused by diet, not exercise. You can run 12 hours a day but if you eat 10k calories a day, you're going to end up fat.

I think the mainly part is correct, but 12 hours of running like 6-7k calories for an 150 lbs. person. As you get heavier it’s going to go up fast (and non linearly)—essentially any kind of extreme exercise is going to put an upper limit on your weight.

I’m unsure if your body can even process 10k calories in day. The basal metabolic rate for a 1000 lbs person isn’t that high.

They were making a point with an exaggerated example, not suggesting that 12 hours of running or 10k calories/day is actually reasonable.

I never said that the OP implied it was reasonable. My point is that there's a level of activity at which you likely can't eat enough to get fat.

Michael Phelps is probably the only most valid extreme example!

https://olympics.com/en/featured-news/michael-phelps-10000-c...

Lots of ultra distance runners and cyclists eat and burn more than that. The point is with sufficient exercise it is almost impossible to stay fat.

And the counterpoint is that most people aren't able to do that much exercise. Because it's A LOT. Basically full time athletes or highly physical workers. So that excludes all people with a sedentary or only partially physically demanding work.

Sufficient is a lot. If you eat a fast food meal (burger, fries, soda) above maintenance you're looking at half a marathon to burn that off. And most people aren't pro cyclists that are able to sustain 400 watts+ for a hour.

Sufficient is a lot, but it’s nowhere near as extreme as that example makes it sound.

That’s a half marathon for a 150 lbs fit person, running efficiently. A 250 lbs person who is a little out of shape will burn that in a 2.5 hour walk.

Obviously 1300 calories a day above maintenance is extreme for most people, but energy expended scales non linearly with weight. There are also a lot quicker ways to burn calories than marathon running.

The solution to obesity is eating less and going on a walk or two during the day. The solution to your back getting blown out by moving boxes is… giving up your job.

That’s the whole point.

Both can be true.

Perhaps, but the epidemic of sedentary lifestyle has lead to a large suite of problems, ranging from miserable back pain to cardiovascular problems to diabetes. The average office worker can barely run a mile, do a pullup, squat below parallel with their bodyweight, or climb a flight of stairs without panting.

Some of us spend hours a week compensating for this. If lifting boxes and carrying them around all day long paid a fraction of the salary I have, I think I would take it in a heartbeat. It sounds delightful. You prefer to be in meetings for 6 hours a day and scramble to code in between them? And let me guess, no neck pain and daily headaches for you right ?

Its one thing to do hard physical exercise, like gym work, cycling, swimming, running etc for like and hour or two everyday, and then get good rest- Work in the time there is in between. This is actually far healthier than a full time job doing hard physical labor. There is certain thing call physical wear-and-tear which is real, together with injuries, and you won't be getting paid nearly as well or with the same benefits and perks. Eventually your mind will find a job repulsive that doesn't pay as much.

I also heard some where at some point nearly every one working these hard labor jobs indulges in after work drinking as a means of pain relief analgesic.

The thing that you describe about the average working job Joe, is really physical abuse in the exact opposite direction to the extreme physical labor. Both are bad. Balance is how you enjoy life.

Sports are the better answer for improving physical fitness. I do moderate weightlifting and HIIT-style MTB/cycling 5-10 hours per week, and when I took up a short gig to unload shipping containers, I was far more muscular and athletic than the other workers.

The job descriptions for manual labor positions that say “It’s like getting paid for going to the gym!” is deceiving. Yes, you will develop a fortitude and lean strength. It’s very hard work. I was battered after a week. But the physical payoff isn’t worth it and the life-long risks are severe.

It’s super depressing to work alongside a 19-year-old recent high school graduate, who jokes to you about his chronic lower back problem, while he angrily tosses 2,000+ oft-heavy boxes onto the sorting line. It shouldn’t be our children doing the crippling work.

>> You prefer to be in meetings for 6 hours a day and scramble to code in between them

How did we possibly get to this and what shareholder or customer thinks this is a good idea?

It's the 2000s, talking about problems ad nauseam without solving them unless pressing has been the status quo for a few decades now.

Sure, but companies that only talk and don't do should die out by natural selection. Why isn't this happening?

Inertia, being carried by past success, delivering juuust enough new value that their clients don't switch away from them.

Or their clients have inertia and continue to use their product long past the time they should have moved to a competitor who is innovating.

I don't know. I think there's a lot of dead weight in the big corporations that is being carried along. I think you can see this a lot in marketing departments with massive budgets. They spend their money marketing to other big companies. Those companies are spending their money marketing back to them. It's like a shell game where a lot of money is moving but nothing changes.

Erm you can definitely make six figures doing physical work. Have to imagine that’s a pretty decent fraction of your salary. You’re not going to do that though, because that work is hard and desk/computer shit is easy af in comparison with banger pay & benefits. Cool story though I guess.

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