Farmers always worked from home • Hacker News Board

Re: Farmers always worked from home

#11

Post by randomdata » Tue, Jul 27, 2021, 2:32 PM UTC

defaultname wrote: post #3

What possible value is there in holding a farmer's lifestyle as a model or contrast for knowledge workers? Are work/life balance concerns not a problem because someone somewhere collects eggs at 5am and vegetables at 8pm? Further, suicides and other mental health issues are endemic among farmers. And I'm pretty sure work-life balance is an endless concern for those so engaged.

As a farmer and WFH veteran of the software industry for 20 years, I think there are some decent parallels. I’m not sure the article expresses them well.

Re: Farmers always worked from home

#12

Post by sriram_sun » Tue, Jul 27, 2021, 2:35 PM UTC

I wonder where farm workers are from? :). My point is that almost all farm workers are at least temporarily displaced from their homes.

Re: Farmers always worked from home

#13

Post by throwaway0a5e » Tue, Jul 27, 2021, 2:35 PM UTC

nonameiguess wrote: post #4

> In the 1800s, 90 percent of the US population lived on a farm, rocking their WFH setups. How did they all survive without mental breakdowns and Harvard Business Review articles praising strict Work-Life Balance? They didn't? Child mortality was 500 times as high as today in 1800 in the United States, and in the first half of the century, most of the people working on farms were slaves that I'm pretty sure had plent…

>They didn't? Child mortality was 500 times as high as today in 1800 in the United States, and in the first half of the century, most of the people working on farms were slaves that I'm pretty sure had plenty of mental breakdowns even if nobody was treating and diagnosing them.

IMO farming has an absolutely terrible work life balance (as does owning most low margin businesses) relative to most office jobs but...

To say claim most farm labor was performed by slaves prior to 1865 flies in the face of the results of about half a dozen federal censuses and childhood mortality says close to nothing about the lives of the people who made it to adulthood.

Re: Farmers always worked from home

#14

Post by Tade0 » Tue, Jul 27, 2021, 2:38 PM UTC

Hailing from Poland (like the author) I see this write-up as a yet another manifestation of the toxic culture of overwork prevalent in this country.

I lived like that during the first years of working remotely and it's both inefficient and unhealthy.

Re: Farmers always worked from home

#15

Post by corty » Tue, Jul 27, 2021, 2:39 PM UTC

The entire premise of the article is untrue. Larger farms always had paid or unpaid laborers who where not "the Farmer" but still farmers. With the industrialisation this tendency increased as mom&pop farms got fewer and average farm size increased. In the whole eastern block, private small farms were absent or an exception, the rule was the kolkhoz model, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landwirtschaftliche_Produktion... Farmers were employees with regular work time, fields of employment like operating machinery, milking or tending lifestock. The author ignores all this and draws conclusions from a mostly-wrong stereotype.

Re: Farmers always worked from home

#16

Post by lapetitejort » Tue, Jul 27, 2021, 2:41 PM UTC

TaupeRanger wrote: post #8

pueblito wrote: post #2

This article is ridiculous. I’m a farmer and clearly I have time to surf the internet, and separating work from life is absolutely something I do - and my fathers before me. Grandma would’ve never put up with shop talk at the dinner table.

A farmer on Hacker News? Please tell me more.

Well, I start my day by checking crypto prices. I eat my coffee and toast as I unwrap the new shipment of 3090's...

Re: Farmers always worked from home

#17

Post by supermatt » Tue, Jul 27, 2021, 2:49 PM UTC

As a farmer, always working from home, I realise I am exceptionally privileged not to be trapped in a tiny apartment during multi-month covid lockdowns. It must be hard to keep any balance when you are eating, sleeping, working and resting in the same box

Re: Farmers always worked from home

#18

Post by enumjorge » Tue, Jul 27, 2021, 2:52 PM UTC

randomdata wrote: post #11

defaultname wrote: post #3

What possible value is there in holding a farmer's lifestyle as a model or contrast for knowledge workers? Are work/life balance concerns not a problem because someone somewhere collects eggs at 5am and vegetables at 8pm? Further, suicides and other mental health issues are endemic among farmers. And I'm pretty sure work-life balance is an endless concern for those so engaged.

As a farmer and WFH veteran of the software industry for 20 years, I think there are some decent parallels. I’m not sure the article expresses them well.

As someone who knows nothing about farming, those two seem so different in my mind. I’d love to hear your take on what the similarities are.

Re: Farmers always worked from home

#19

Post by devwastaken » Tue, Jul 27, 2021, 2:55 PM UTC

TaupeRanger wrote: post #8

pueblito wrote: post #2

This article is ridiculous. I’m a farmer and clearly I have time to surf the internet, and separating work from life is absolutely something I do - and my fathers before me. Grandma would’ve never put up with shop talk at the dinner table.

A farmer on Hacker News? Please tell me more.

Also come from farmers. Horses. Hay costs are through the roof because drought and heat, vets are expensive, far and few between. Less demand than ever, and everything is expensive. Glad I'm not in it as much anymore. Would like to be out of it entirely but #family and "Local only" software work half the country away don't mix.

The others that operate the farm nowadays are absolutely swamped. Not enough money to do it full time so they work other full time jobs.

Re: Farmers always worked from home

#20

Post by alistairSH » Tue, Jul 27, 2021, 2:55 PM UTC

barrenko wrote: post #7

Watch Clarkson's Farm and then try again.

Beat me to it!

For those who don't know Jeremy Clarkson, he was one of the hosts of the UK's Top Gear (highly rated car show on BBC). Last year, he did a show about his farm in the Cotswolds. He's owned it for a while, but had a tenant farmer. That bloke retired, so Clarkson decided to run the farm himself (with help from a consultant and the existing farm staff).

Even with scripted bits and typical Clarkson silliness, it was plainly obvious it was a lot of hard work and long hours. All for a few hundred GBP profit at the end of the season. Yes, you read that correctly - the grain (the farm's primary output) only provided a tiny profit for all the work that went into it.