Hyperemployment, or the Exhausting Work of the Technology User | Hacker News Reader

Hyperemployment, or the Exhausting Work of the Technology User

theatlantic.com

68 pointsdkasper26 comments

Once I was a Marine combat engineer. We worked all day. Reveille starts at 06 and taps wasn't until 20, 21, or maybe even 24. There was a singular focus throughout the day: get shit done.

That involved no computers, no phones, no digital distractions. Just blowing up stuff, building bridges, or moving boulders by hand.

Physically draining work that at the end you try to somehow find a can of un-skunked beer to cheer to.

I remember the culture was unkind to office work, they saw it as soft. That's partly why they were out there in the first place, unfit for mainstream society, not wanting to be desk jockeys, just good ol' boys, the desperate, the unwanted, the jailed, standing around in uniforms doing things with their hands. I made sure I never told anyone I was any good with computers.

The type of problem solving we had to do on a day to day basis didn't require too much thought, and if anything there were always policy or documentation to explain what to do and how to do it.

Long days, hard work, but I never had to use my brain. I quite enjoyed functioning as a tiny cog in a big machine despite the risks.

Transitioning home, I found work at a premier tech company, one where they make phones, tablets, and computers. The work was different. I stared at screens all day. Inside a cubicle with fuzzy walls, where often times the only communication I have were email chains.

Operating a computer, functioning as a tiny switch in a big board required the a more precious asset: my brain. I was thinking all the time, trying to recall, connect, and communicate. And doing the same thing all day is... boring.

I went home every night drained. Physically, mentally, and emotionally. The days weren't as long, the environment wasn't bad, the risk were low but the work is hard. I hated it.

Nowadays I code. I romanticize my job by equating it to writing love poems to an inanimate object. Sometimes I get affection, often times I get rejection. It's an ongoing love-hate relationship. One that just takes and takes from my brain while leaving me a soft, mushy lump on a nice Aeron chair yearning to be free.

Computers took a lot from me since I was 10. Two decades late I've only barely learned how to take a lot from computers.

Find your balance.

Wow this was quite a nice read :) like a 'shorter' novel.

Nowadays I code. I romanticize my job by equating it to writing love poems to an inanimate object

This is a great line.

Unfortunately this can be said of a lot of tech work. I left my IT consulting job about 5 months ago to do a start-up.

I could never get used to how mentally exhausted I often felt after 12 hr days, yet at the end of the week could point to nothing of value that I produced.

The current work is draining but at least I am doing it to myself:)

If my start up fails, I might get a food truck and start selling portable lunches, maybe I'll enjoy that...lol

One common recommendation is to keep a journal of things you've done, so that you can look it over and acknowledge yourself. (It doesn't work for me, but it might work for you.)

I'm thinking that the exhaustion had less to do with email or tech per se, but more to do with not having the authority to get shit done by actually solving problems. What I imagine with your Marine combat experience, is that you had access the to resources you needed, and it was your group's sole responsibility to get things done. In my career, the most draining positions I've had in the past are the ones where you can only fix symptoms, or peripheral problems and there is some long-term roadblock for me or the team to fully address problems.

Ha. I found this statement pretty funny as an ex-army officer. You got it 100% wrong. You have very little control in the army. To do anything. Including leave for the weekend, or taking a vacation.

Well put.

I often lament that if I could make anything close to my current salary in technology by cutting grass, digging holes, spreading mulch and hammering nails as I did for 10 hours a day at minimum wage in the 90s - I'd jump on the opportunity.

You, sir, are incredibly talented at writing. Please consider writing (anything), and drop me an email to buy/read it.

I remember pg saying something like "email is a todo list that lets anyone in the world add items to the top" but the actual quote isn't quite as good:

http://www.paulgraham.com/ambitious.html

  Email was not designed to be used the way we use it now. 
  Email is not a messaging protocol. It's a todo list. Or 
  rather, my inbox is a todo list, and email is the way 
  things get onto it. But it is a disastrously bad todo list.

Or you could exercise some control over your own life and not pay attention to Youtube, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, Reddit, etc.

Life is so horrible because work consists of reading Reddit instead of physical labor. Where's my flying car?

Physical labor was great because you didn't have to work then go to the gym separately. Left more leisure time.

I don't buy it. You only need to workout about 30min a day, 3-4 times a week to stay in decent shape. Maybe an hour if you include prep and showering. That's only a few hours of your leisure time a week you might be missing out on...

The biggest difference is the leisure time that accrues to you by retirement. On top of having more money saved, you're almost certainly in much better physical shape than someone who engaged in physically demanding activity for 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week, for 40 years.

Have you seen professional acrobats? They look 15 years younger than they are.

There's a tremendous difference between physical fitness and running your body into the ground through long days of extraordinarily difficult labor.

I suspect acrobats self select as people who look young, as that seems correlated with agility. Not withstanding that, the most common advice my high school coach gave us was to not over-practice. (I ran cross country, most of the more dedicated members had at least 1 season where they had to drop out from over-exerting themselves).

Or you could go even further and incorporate workout into your leisure time: play a sport!

I was never in so great shape as when I worked as a dishwasher. Bike to work (8 miles, rain / shine / snow), work damned hard, close and clean up the restaurant, bike home. Of course, I was making like 50X less than I do now.

I was happy to have that job, but even happier to leave it for something that involved keyboards and air-conditioned machine rooms instead of scalding hot water and smelling like a dishrag during my "leisure time" (which was more like recuperation, actually).

I don't mind physical work, and I've done my share, but I'd rather not do much more of it. My dad grew up on a small farm in the northwest US, and that was work; he's paying for it now, in his old age.

If I could make the same money I do now washing dishes, I would take it in a heartbeat. I was in much better shape, and honestly, my job was more fulfilling I could point to and see real progress every night of work.

Physical labor is great because you don't have time to worry about anything else.

Vous devez avoir, dit Candide au Turc, une vaste et magnifique terre? — Je n’ai que vingt arpents, répondit le Turc; je les cultive avec mes enfants; le travail éloigne de nous trois grands maux: l’ennui, le vice, et le besoin.

For those who don't know French (approximate):

Candide asked the Turk, "Do you have a vast and magnificent estate?" "I only have twenty acres," the Turk replied. "I cultivate them with my children; The work wards off three great evils: boredom, vice, and want."

- From Voltaire's "Candide" - one of the more fun (and short!) 'Great Books'.

And yet mortality rates worse and there was actually very little leisure time ... funny that ...

How does this reconcile with "Bullshit jobs," which also quotes Keynes in 1930?

http://www.strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/

This is a rant about I can't manage my own life: there is no reason to pay attention to what you don't want, unless you do. Unsubscribe, if you can't flag as spam, pay your bills on time (do I really need to say that?). Add others rant's as previous, leave FB/HN/etc bla.

I don't find email that much of a drain. I used to, when I was subscribed to a ton of mailinglists, but I cut down, and I skip a lot. I don't have to read everything. I tried to once; I tried to read all of usenet, then all of the web. And now, well, G+ and HN. And there I skip most too.

I read when I like. I don't need to check stuff constantly. I could have tons of free time if I just kept away from G+ and HN a bit more. And the stuff I read counts as leisure; maybe not the best way to spend my leisure time, but it's still leisure.

I don't think Keynes was all that wrong, really. I work 32 hours a week, and my son is the main thing that eats up my leisure time. People had more kids in the 1930s.

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