As someone who until Oct last year worked weekends and weekdays getting up at 2:30 am to bust my ass in a bakery for dismal pay and virtually no social life due to the hours - I work part time as a junior developer now and looking back at my old life I don't know how the hell I did it. It motivates me to do the best I can each day so I don't end up back there.

Similar experience as an ex Chef. 60+ hour weeks, 5 days a week spread over various split shifts (so rarely 2 whole days off, and half days never really feel like a break). Working for what comes out as less than minimum wage as salaried.

In part because of this, I find it really difficult to deal with people I work with complaining about pay/bonuses/hours etc, because imo what I do now is way easier and probably less empirically useful (although obviously more valuable - thanks capitalism).

There is a small part of me that misses the buzz of a busy service though.

> In part because of this, I find it really difficult to deal with people I work with complaining about pay/bonuses/hours etc,

I get what you're saying and that you likely don't mean any malice, but just in case: It isn't a competition to see who can have the worst working conditions.

That kind of rhetoric is the same that those with capital use to suppress wages/benefits because it's obviously profitable in the long run. It's a manipulation: Many people want to be seen as industrious, and telling someone they're entitled because they want an extra vacation day a year is a powerful manipulation that works much of the time.

Don't be manipulated. The company is almost assuredly making a huge return on your employment. Don't be afraid to assert your right to some of it.

The best approach is to consider yourself a company. Your time is your commodity, your goal is to make profit. Don't give for free your commodity, understand well how is valued in the current market and how to increase that value.

Never go to ask for a bonus/raise because you "deserve" it, but because your skills are valued x in the current job market.

As someone who's been on both sides of the fence, any theories on how they manage to find people to work in cooking, sometimes with really high skill levels, for such long hours for relatively horrible pay?

I mean some I know are very intelligent people, and extremely good at what they do, but make like $50k working 60+ hours per week. It's insane.

Some people truly love it, it's an actual passion. I did work experience at a 2 Michelin Star place, and honestly I've never seen anything like it. I had thought my hours were long - but this was insane. Despite how hard the work was, everyone there was enthusiastic as hell. They saw that one day they'd be able to create the exquisite food, plate it up and send it. That was all they wanted to do.

For those guys (and it was almost all guys) - it was just the only thing they wanted to do in life. This was also kinda the moment I realised it wasn't for me!

I didn't even work during undergrad CS and that was the most stressful point in my life. I easily put in 40-50 hours a week between classes, studying, problem sets and projects.

The months before, during and after interview season were the worst. I had to add 10 hours a week to study 1-2 months beforehand. Then during the interview season, I had to miss classes to go on 7 hour east to west coast flights, with return flights landing at 3 AM local time. After the interviewing season ended, there were mountains of work from missing classes and neglecting school work.

Now it's 10 AM - 7:30 PM (including meal time, I never eat at my desk) with free breakfast, lunch and dinner with no deadlines to worry about. During the undergrad years, I was studying by memorizing the answers to all permutations of a problem because of stress and multiple deadlines a week, but now I have the time to understand the how's and why's of the questions and answers.

Also the money that can effectively be used buy time is nice. I can afford to pay people to fix my toilet/unclog my sink/build IKEA furniture/etc. and have the money to order grocery delivery/drop-off laundry/take-out/etc.

While I get your point, I think that to some extent is a false sense of comfort. If you've gone through a challenging time it's more important, not less, to live a balanced life. Because you probably have a lots of "social debt" (loosing contact with friends, not having many relationships, not having done things you normally do at that age etc.) that you need to compensate for. Otherwise you'll sit there at 40+ wondering what happened when (seemingly) everyone else are with their family skiing for the holidays.

I worked in factory for a while. Wake up at 7am. Be at work by 8am. Work until 12:30. Half hour for lunch. Work until 4:30. Then your day is OVER. You go home and do whatever the hell you want. The stress is lower, the pay is lower and you get much more effective free time. Oh and you don't feel like your brain is about to explode when you go home at 10pm.

tl;dr: yes, there are worse jobs than programming, but not many. The ridiculous amounts of stress is one of the reasons Silicon Valley pays so much more than Industry jobs.

Agreed. As soon as I start complaining about how hard and stressful my job is, I always try to remember how lucky and privileged I am, in the grand scheme of things.

This attitude is how salary ceilings take hold, how "mandatory crunch time" becomes the norm, and how the idea of work-life balance becomes a joke. Even when one's situation is relatively good, one should continue to fight for better.

"I'm training my off-shore replacement, but at least I'm doing it in air-conditioning!"

No, it's not.

In case "mandatory crunch time" becomes the norm, I simply look for another job.

Being able to appreciate that I have that choice is another matter.

Working at pizza shops, malls, etc., those things used to be jobs for high schoolers or people between HS and college. It's a shame for many people, the lack of skills makes these the only jobs they can get.

I remember a good number of people on high school who thought they didn't fit in, only went because their parents made them go and who had no intention of going to college or university. Their plan was getting a blue collar job or working for a friend's dad or the like. These days their outlook is dim. There was little forethought in what their situation might look 20 years on, given their choices.

Yap. It's very easy to dismiss someone's frustration about X by comparing it with a more miserable Y.

It's really easy when almost anything is more miserable than X.