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Our jobs might not be physically demanding, but many of us are mentally exhausted every day. I don't work an insane number of hours, but the expectation is always that I'll figure out a way forward with limited information and a team comprised of both competent and incompetent people who mostly want to be told what to do. In the vast majority of software engineering jobs, writing the actual code is trivial.

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But the same could be said of any white collar job with a modicum of complexity, no?

I’m not denying what you are saying. I’m just not convinced it’s different from other professions.

I’ve had the opportunity to work with both mechanical and electrical engineers. They deal with the same office politics and other BS we deal with.

I think in most organizations/teams, there are a small number of people who are doing most of the thinking, so yes, it is probably the same in all kinds of professions. My objection is mostly to the idea that jobs that aren't physically demanding are all comfy and not exhausting.

I never said they weren’t! My objection is to the idea that, somehow, software development is _more_ demanding or exhausting than other white collar professions.

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