But for me it was also a type of work where I put in some heavy work and got physically tired and slept well at night without a thought of the job. In my current project I'm in a leading position in some high profile projects and there will be high stakes decision that needs to be taken, there will be drama and opinions and you will need to learn a lot of things in a short time. Even if I would go home at a reasonable time I can still en up googling possible solutions to problems at work in the evening or thinking about how I should reply to an email.

That is mentally taxing in a different way and for me often as equally difficult to cope with as working in a tough physical job all day.

This doesn’t mean be lazy. It means relax, and you’ll probably find that you do better work that way.

Unless someone’s life is directly on the line (maybe it is and I’m wrong), the stakes being high is often just a story we’re telling ourselves.

Also being one of four people that helped a parent company lose a couple million dollars doesn't feel great either.

Or work for a large company where if you screw up it could result in all of your major clients terminating their contracts and the parent corporation deciding to close an entire department resulting in hundreds of people losing their jobs. That's the situation I'm in right now. Thankfully I'm not TOO high on that totem pole that I feel all the stress in the world, and we're probably only delaying the inevitable in the long run, but it is very difficult to relax.

In the military where if you screw up it could result in all of your buddies dying. That was my situation when I was 18.

Listen, it's going to be alright. Breathe. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. It's going to be okay.

I have a friend who went the other way: worked as a nuclear engineer but eventually got fed up and became a chef (he runs a restaurant in Palo Alto). As he put it to me “when I go home work is over. I don’t have many tasks that span days.”

I have been busy when I worked in a factory and had estops going off, but when the shift is over, Not my problem... Although don't make a mess.

This is a hardware engineers on going struggle.

But it seems dismissive to say a dev can't claim burnout because they aren't doing something physical. When a junior dev, I once went into the office 23 days in a row and was usually there until 11 pm or midnight, sometimes later, sometimes earlier. I got burned out and left. It wasn't good for my health or relationships. I bet if you worked hours like that loading a truck you at least would have gotten overtime.

I work in engineering for construction - when we were building Bertha's rescue shaft in Seattle the crews worked 5 months straight drilling holes and placing concrete with two crews on 12 hour shifts with only July 4 and Memorial Day off. When we excavated the shaft and repaired the machine we switched to three 8s and ran for almost another year.

Rain or shine, hot or cold, day or night. We worked that job every day. Nobody left until we switched to 8s because guys wanted to work 10s on another job - that's just blue collar work. In fact, that's the type of blue collar work that guys want because the OT pays the bills so you're right about that. The management on the project? Worked 1.5x as many hours as the crew because they would normally cover a shift and a transition. Every one salaried. Nobody left.

What the tech industry complains about for working conditions makes me laugh.

Another way to look at this is that people are underpaid just enough to get them to work longer, but the knock-on costs of that (impact on health etc.) won't manifest until later and will likely be borne by someone else rather than the current employer. This is equally true for bricklayers and coders.

For context I also did many years of construction and manual work, I'd guess my life has been about 50-50 physical and brain work (of course they're not mutually exclusive). The above is an observation from experience rather than theory.

Obviously blue collar work is going to be harder than white collar, but that doesn't change the fact that working conditions for each job can still be terrible relative to the type of work it's located in. It's the same for blue-collar work where not all blue-collar work is going to be equally difficult.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertha_(tunnel_boring_machine)

I’m not the OP but I read the comment as not saying burnout isn’t a thing or that it pales in comparison to blue collar struggle. It was more that the common gripes you may hear at an office—especially from folks whose work history is only office work—tends to make you reflect. At least that’s my experience.

Might not even be a bad idea for larger companies that have the logistical range to get their staff swap collars a week a quarter.

A guy recently joined my team whose father was a mechanic and mother a health aide. He said he went into software because he didn't want to hurt and be exhausted like his parents.

Factory line workers and truck loaders are trying to get into software, accounting, etc., not the other way around.

I used to laugh when people would complain about almost anything. Due to my Army experience it makes most people's complaints non-issues to me. But I am starting to realize you have to meet people where they are and have some empathy for them. They only can see it from their perspective. Telling people to suck it up, hasn't been exactly effective for me in this industry. Different environment so different tools are effective.

[0] Not so much physically, but dealing with people for 10 hours a day and most of them are very unhappy (losing money) takes a toll. I'd rather frame houses imo.

Edit: Formatting

Big reason I mention this is that even if the indulgence you're describing might be the most effective means of getting your tasks done, it makes one wonder about the consequences of this change in society on a macro level.

I don't think most of the today's nations with compulsory enlistment would give you an edge at anything. Just the skill of sucking up to doing fuck all for the term you are enlisted for.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration

During your enlistment you not only trained but also of course compensated and generally very well prepared to lead a productive life. I think there's a lot to admire about this. But yeah - the issue is when these ideals mix with the reality of enlistment turning into deployment in wars of dubious merit, which is why this whole idea is a nonstarter for the US.

But one example of a nation where it does work well is Switzerland. The reason I mention them in particular is because in 2013 there was a referendum aimed at abolishing this enlistment. It failed with more than 73% voting against it. [1] I think it indicates how well it can work and the value it can provide, but of course again the big difference is that Switzerland is also incredibly conservative in the deployment of their military.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Switzerland

In software, I was frequently pressured to deliver more, or in less time, despite my own estimates. There often literally was too much to do. When I didn't meet estimates (mine or my manager's), the consequences often fell on me.

In labor, I work at a speed that's safe and sustainable, and keep going until the job is done. The head position made the estimates, but if they were low, I'm essentially rewarded for this mistake (via OT). I've never gotten in the least bit of trouble for not working fast enough, and occasionally praised for my speed.

As unpleasant as a summer in the south can be, I bet your manager never came by and said "We're in a hurry, so let's just leave half the boxes on the truck, and hope it won't turn out to be a problem later -- customers probably won't even notice". Yet that sort of thing happens all the time in software.

When working in a field such as software, you take the stress home with you, you are constantly thinking about the job and the fact that if you cant figure out this issue that yo have been working on for 7 days the project is potentially going to fail or they are going to fire you. Many nights you kiss your family good night and then while they are asleep you sit slumped at your desk just trying to get a few more hours in before you collapse for 4 hours of sleep and then get up to do it again. This is obviously not all the time but it is for the most part at some time in all software jobs.

In software and many white collar jobs the concept of work-life balance is really just an idea there is no clear delineation between work time and not work time.

I've been in software for many years, including 5+ years as hands-on developer, and I've never ever stayed up this late to do anything. I've worked in startups, including failing startups. Maybe i'm just naturally zen. My career is doing great btw.

Now, in an ideal world, you would never need heroes in an office environment, but I get that shit happens. And there's also been plenty of times in my career when busting my ass was directly tied to faster advancement (and serious monetary rewards), so I definitely don't regret any of the times I really chose to push myself hard to accomplish something.

I left. 2 months after a colleague told me that "velocity" was the new word the managers had in their mouth. 6 month later I got a call from another colleague telling me he was about to leave as well and now wanted to punch another guy. What's funny is that I want to punch them both because they used me as a terrain for a proxy war (I don't really want to punch them, but when I heard those words it made my day and I'm still giggling as I'm writing this). I was also told that the persons who replaced us took 6 months to build something that would have taken us 2 weeks. They recently started an overtime hours program with the company's employees.

I left. I left.

Edit: I'm somehow considering a blue colar job.

I somehow feel like I should become a farmer so I can have access to higher quality food...

You’re right—our experiences are pretty unique especially in places like the Bay Area. In fact, you are the first person I’ve ever met with a similar background. I was stoked to read your comment—“I’m not the only one.”

And like you noted, no matter how brutal work can get now, it takes just a bit of reflection to recenter myself. This is almost like a dream. I’ve been very fortunate to wind up where I did. Most folks where I’m from are still busting their asses working those real hard jobs.

6 years into my programming career and I still think regularly about those jobs any time I feel annoyed by the assorted issues/people I have to deal with. It gives me perspective that I'm really not working... I'm being given money to have fun learning and doing cool stuff.

It's topsy-turvy and the people at the high end of the wage scale have very well honed excuses: "but, I have specialised knowledge that I worked very hard to acquire" etc.

Well, I got specialised knowledge that it took me a long time and effort to acquire. It's still unfair that the people who make the stuff I eat, the stuff I wear, the stuff I use to acquire that specialised knowledge are paid a pittance and I can live comofortably off their backs, really.

The world is such an unfair place and the people who benefit from that the most aren't even aware of it.

I'd expect people who that happens to to be really angry, looking for someone or something to take them out of it.

I've worked 12 hours a day, 7 days a week in construction, it's only physically hard, it's only physical pain. Solving problems and fighting through headaches, loading context into your head, there's real pain, but it's a mental pain instead.

Before software, I did a bunch of construction. Some of those tasks were highly repetitive. ("Remove this commercial firewall that's 45 feet tall and 200 feet long". "Fill these 500 holes with metal plugs, weld them in, then grind them smooth", "remove 500sq feet of carpet on concrete, and get the glue up too")

If I paced myself and went carefully, my quality stayed high. If I rushed, quality went down. If I worked too long, quality went down.

One can move boxes, but... one can also:

  - damage the box by careless handling
  - loose the order (if the order is important, which it usually is)
  - hurt oneself in the process
  - hurt someone else in the process. (If its 1000 boxes, you're prob using a forklift or at _least_ a pallet jack)

(edit: formatting) "blue collar" jobs have quite a lot of room for optimization and process management, just as software jobs do.

(though, yes, the _scale_ of moving boxes vs. working on a system that will be used by thousands/millions is very different.)