Sitting in a chair all day is not good for your health long term.

Right, but even when you're in poor health from sitting in a chair all day you can keep sitting in that chair and doing the same work. Whereas if you're a skilled trades worker and break your back by falling off a ladder then you can't work at all. So the downside risk is more severe.

I wonder what the burnout rate is for the trades vs white collar work.

No one is forced to sit. For example, sit stand desks, and waking breaks.

They're forced to sit in many offices.

Animal cruelty. Not as bad as factory farming but similar in spirit in the restrictions on healthy living and basic biology. Don't get me started on school...

I know someone who works in medical billing (awful soul-sucking field) and they can't even read ON THEIR BREAKS because it will look like they aren't working.

ON THEIR BREAKS.

I had a job like that once:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXh1tW16V-8

I had a job that had cameras BEHIND YOUR DESK! lol! There were like 100+ cameras for an office of 100 people.

As a former chef, I'll gladly take the extra few pounds and minor shoulder issues I've gotten as PM over scalding hot oil being poured on my arms or a meat slicer taking the tip of my thumb mostly off.

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/False-E...

My wood shop teacher started by showing us his missing fingers eaten by a table saw. Best safety lesson ever. I always think of that when using my table saw.

Those meat slicers give me the heebie jeebies.

Sorry about your thumb.

Especially since it's a solved problem. SawStop[1] is incredible. Yes, Festool isn't cheap, but neither is an unplanned amputation. Of course it's not perfect, but you'll probably be looking at stitches instead of dismemberment.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYLAi4jwXcs

It’s fine, I ran to CVS and bought a bottle of super glue to patch myself up. Then I worked a 10 hour shift.

Still better than my grandfather who lost all the fingers on one hand to a hay bale elevator chain. It was after dark so while his wife drove him to the hospital the kids had to go look for them.

And then NPR writes insipid think pieces wondering why nobody wants to work in the trades anymore. If only we could put a finger on it…

(Edited for spelling)

The examples in that article seem poorly chosen.

I don’t disagree but I needed something fast and it met the need.

Probably, but it still isn't even comparable to the amount of damage and wear done to a body through the trades. Its like comparing some guy who plays bar league baseball to a 1st string NFL player.

Anecdotally, I know a good number of people "in the trades" and in tech, and the incidence of serious health issues around the age of 40-50 appears much higher in the tech group.

I think it's different for "unskilled" labor, such as working in a warehouse, but it's not like being a plumber or an electrician is that hard on your body.

I don't know about that. Stress is a fuckin killer and it wraps it's tentacles around other areas of your life.

Being a programmer at 50 is much harder than at 25, a bigger difference than plumber at 25 and 50.

How is that true?

If it is it has more to do with discrimination than the nature of the job.

30 years of sitting at a desk take a major toll on your body.

I'm sorry but I would need some really compelling evidence to believe that's less sustainable into middle age than repetitive, difficult manual labor. The idea seems absurd on its face and I see many people sitting at desks right up till they're eligible for Social Security.

You say that but the number of people I've seen go under from mainly brain work is not to be sniffed at, and once they do they're affected for years.

I mean part of that can be blamed on themselves - a lot of people seem to pressure themselves to stay busy, to work 14 hour days, to do all the things, keep up with all the things, have a day job and a side gig and passive income and contribute to open source while reading X books per week and doing meditation to try and compensate for not taking downtime.

But others can be blamed on the industry / environment; think excessive meetings so that the non-developers feel useful, forced social events, or piling on more and more responsibilities onto people (just think of how many languages, environments, frameworks, applications, etc you're expected to know at your current day job.). Under the cool names of "full-stack developer" or "DevSecOps teams".