And a warehouse worker would have to work 7 to 10 times longer in their “hell” to earn what you made.

To be brutally honest, I have great respect who work at manual jobs, work at shifts, work at weekends. In general who work hard, a lot and in unconventional hours.

I try to be extra nice to these people, try to release the burden on them, when I can. When chatting with my SO, we sometimes talk about these people and how bad I feel about their circumstances.

I want to reiterate that I think that they need to earn more and live better.

Have you ever worked a hard labor job? Do you expect never to have to? “They” might be you one day.

I haven't worked in full time labor job, however I helped or worked with laborers on volunteering basis. OTOH, just because I worked as a volunteer, I didn't work less when compared to them.

Similarly, on my current job, I have worked off-site, in hazardous sites, in off-hours (including all-nighters), in movement restricted conditions (think as soft imprisonment inside a building) or extremely stressful circumstances. These weren't "Oh, there's a deadline, so let's crunch!" stuff. It was against all odds, against the clock rescue jobs where nobody including your teammates were believing that it's possible, but we (me and a friend) have prevailed.

On the hardware mounting stuff, it was not again "let's playfully install" this stuff too. 100+ servers, left in boxes in front of the building. Carry, unbox, install rails, mount, make all the cabling (incl. electricity, from distribution boxes if req'd) and make them work, in 2 days most.

Yesterday, I was carrying servers to make some part replacements on them.

I never expect not to become one of these laborers. I never think of them as servants or invisible people. On the contrary, they are forming the backbone of some of the stuff that we never see consciously. These systems become invisible because of their hard work. They deserve a lot of respect.

Trash is picked up 1am in my street. I always think of the man, their families and circumstances.

Similarly, when I go to a carrier's office, I try to prepare all my answers and papers before to take their time less (they're literally drowning in packages to ship, so if I'm faster, they can finish their other work faster). I actively try not to reflect myself onto them since they see hundreds of people every day. I try not to be one of the people which makes them feel like a useless/replaceable cogs.

Just because I can play with a lot of cutting edge servers, not sweat everyday and wear my body down to earn a bit of money, it doesn't mean that I can not or don't want to understand and romanticize the burden they're going through.

Similarly just because I have a nicer job, it doesn't mean that all my friends or people I know and care are in the same circle or in higher places.

Just because I know how to manage an OS and write high performance code, it doesn't mean I live isolated in my high castle.

Sounds like you definitely appreciate the efforts of manual labor and even have some manual labor as part of your job.

I agree that there are other factors (far more important ones) than just job/earnings. For example, a star developer making millions with a terminally ill spouse or child would easily trade places with manual laborer if doing that made a difference in their outcome. Silly example but it does illustrate how money is really not at the top of everyone’s list.

> Sounds like you definitely appreciate the efforts of manual labor and even have some manual labor as part of your job.

Thank you. I really appreciate them. Yes, manual labor is a part of our job and we (as the group) do not whine about that. On the contrary, we like the thing TBH.

> For example, a star developer making millions with a terminally ill spouse or child would easily trade places with manual laborer if doing that made a difference in their outcome.

That's not a silly example. It's spot on. I did similar choices (not drastic as the example, and luckily not based on health issues). Rejected higher pay or prestigious titles or shiny companies to be able to stay closer to my family and people I love, to be able to live a simpler and more free life.

I'm not a money oriented person. I do this job because I like computers, I worked a lot and I was definitely lucky up to a certain extent.

However as I said, I don't keep my job as a crown or title about myself to pretend to be more precious and important than other people. We're equal on this little blue dot and everyone and everything deserve respect IMHO.

Which reflects the relative scarcity of people who can work in warehousese vs. people who can do what he does.

The issue was comparing suffering. If one makes 7 times more than another, they only have to put up with it 1/7th the amount of time before earning enough to tell their employer to screw off. Hard to feel as sorry for the person making much more money.

That resentment is harmful. It's built on prejudice that the one earning more money is looking down to person with lower income, and it's not always true.

Also, I still do not agree on earning sevenfold with 1/7 amount of effort (a 49 fold difference). Neither being a sysadmin or a developer is that easy when a single click of your mouse can affect research of 500 people who have deadlines.

It's not "just a walk in the park" when you're working with a lot of projects with deadlines, entering meetings and try to finish everything on time and not being able to see straight due headaches induced by overloading yourself and sleeping 3-4 hours continuously.

No job is easy, they're different. All of them worthy of respect. Also it's always greener on the other side.

Great, now do the same thing but you have to lift boxes. And work in a dangerous environment. You will be exhausted but also in pain.

Office work is not comparable at all.

> Great, now do the same thing but you have to lift boxes.

We install our own datacenter hardware. Hundreds of servers. Carrying. Mounting. Cabling. I'm no stranger to hard, manual work.

I feel tired, but I feel no pain. That's a different kind of being exhausted. Mental exhaustion cannot be compared with physical exhaustion. Both are hard, both are crippling, however one is not better than the other.

It's also very satisfying to install a new fleet and bring it up while drinking tea with muscle tingling all over your body.

Thank you.

It can be. Some offices are hazardous (sick building syndrome, mold) on top of the problems associated with a sedentary lifestyle. Whereas some physical jobs are amazing (work outside, lots of breaks, stay in good shape because you’re moving a lot). It really depends on the specifics of the job.