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Anyone else feel the constant urge to leave the field and become a plumber?

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Re: Anyone else feel the constant urge to leave the field and become a plumber?

#281

Post by batshit_beaver »

emteycz wrote: post #202
_bfhp wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a manifestation of the inherent feeling that many of us developers are doing something mostly useless compared to others. We know that the world could be different and we could be working jobs that are physically and/or mentally difficult but also fair and useful. Ursula K. Le Guin puts it thus, from her novel "This Dispossessed": "A child free from the guilt of ownership and the burden of economic compe…

I can't understand that one. Software fascinates me since I was a child by how universally useful it is. Even for the more manual stuff, computer is still a hyper-useful tool.

I think it's much, much more common in the world of software to build things that either no one uses, or fades out pretty quickly.

There's a world of difference between taking a week to ship a new button to Chrome at Google (low impact, but at least high visibility) and creating a project from scratch over the course of months for it to be killed off by or not work out for the stakeholders (no impact AND no/low visibility). This happens with most projects.

On the other hand, building or fixing something physical you know that at least you're solving a real problem for someone, and it will probably last them a while.

Software is constantly churning and evolving precisely because such evolutions are not limited by tools, materials, or constraints of the physical world. Way better for creativity, but rarely leaves us devs feeling proud of the work we've done

Re: Anyone else feel the constant urge to leave the field and become a plumber?

#282

Post by maccard »

supernova87a wrote: post #246
jedberg wrote: post #64

This last summer/fall really put things in perspective for me. We did a major outdoor renovation at our house, which involved landscapers, plumbers, electricians, and carpenters. Every day these guys would show up at 8am and long sleeves and jeans and hard hats, work super hard, pee in a port-a-potty, and be exhausted by the end of the day. They worked out in the 100 degree heat as well as the rain as the job got nea…

I have to say also that the "4 day workweek" idea tends to be embraced by such same people who have little idea what true laborious labor really is and can pontificate about it from their air conditioned offices. And who I think would be unpleasantly surprised to find out certain inconveniences if everyone's available working hours were cut back by 1 day per week.

I don't think that's necessarily true, in fact I think what happens more often is the idea of a 4 day work week is dismissed by people such as yourself as it doesn't equally apply to everyone. A 5 day work week as is common now doesn't work for hospitality staff, for example. Does that mean that we should all work 4pm-3am Saturday shifts because that's when nightclub staff work? Of course not. do we argue that because patients in hospitals require 24/7 care that we all take up 4on-4off 12 hour shifts?

The argument for the 4 day workweek is that _many_ jobs would be performed just as efficiently as if they were 5 days per week, so they might as well be. If there was a compelling argument that hospital patients required 16 hours of care per day rather than 24, you can bet people would be suggesting dropping doctor and nurse shifts to 4x8 or 5x8 rather than 4x12 or whatever insanity they're doing right now.

Re: Anyone else feel the constant urge to leave the field and become a plumber?

#283

Post by thex10 »

mattlondon wrote: post #209

This is why I like frontend development - you get to see the results of your work. It's satisfying to start with a blank screen or perhaps a times new roman mess, and leave it as something that looks great and works well. Backend development can sometimes be a tedious death march where all you get at the end of the day/week/sprint is not-an-error or perhaps just wiring up RPCs, or maybe if you are very lucky upgradin…

This is me. And honestly, as a full stack web dev who skews front-end, I've never felt this strong urge mentioned in TFA.

Re: Anyone else feel the constant urge to leave the field and become a plumber?

#284

Post by Spinnaker_ »

banana_maker wrote: post #239
cpsns wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I recognize that I have the privilege of not sacrificing my body and health for my income. Sitting for longer periods in any amount is incredibly bad for one's health long term, every study on the subject has confirmed this. You are sacrificing your health, just in a different way.

Comparing construction or plumbing work to sitting is absolutely ludicrous. I also use a standing desk anyways, but I am not sacrificing my health like my grandfather or father did who had/have back/knee and other health issues in their 50s from physical labor. Being able to earn a nice living while sitting at a desk is an enormous privilege, and I also get money and healthcare to routinely visit doctors anyway.

No kidding. I did concrete for a single summer. Software engineering barely counts as work compared to that.

Re: Anyone else feel the constant urge to leave the field and become a plumber?

#285

Post by [deleted] »

mcbishop wrote: post #125

After 15 years doing software development, I started training to be an electrician a month ago (in the Bay Area). The two people I work under are chill / patient. Sometimes when dragging myself and wire though tight rat-shit crawl spaces... I yearn for my nice little home office. But, overall, I enjoy the work. It feels good to do work in the physical world. A lot of electricians are nearing retirement. Meanwhile, el…

[deleted]

Re: Anyone else feel the constant urge to leave the field and become a plumber?

#286

Post by hahajk »

nkozyra wrote: post #166
jedberg wrote: post #64

This last summer/fall really put things in perspective for me. We did a major outdoor renovation at our house, which involved landscapers, plumbers, electricians, and carpenters. Every day these guys would show up at 8am and long sleeves and jeans and hard hats, work super hard, pee in a port-a-potty, and be exhausted by the end of the day. They worked out in the 100 degree heat as well as the rain as the job got nea…

There's something so insidiously, backhandedly condescending about tech workers pining for the simplicity of an honest day's job that drives me nuts. Yes, there are almost always jobs with less strenuous requirements on time, fewer requirements and late nights. But the average tech worker has a pretty good gig. And if they don't they can go down the street in 2022 and get one. Trades scratch a similar itch to develop…

Did this behavior start with the coda of Office Space or has it always been a thing?

A big aspect of Marxism is that labor has been alienated from their production in the age of industrialization, so I’d say it’s been a thing for a while.

Re: Anyone else feel the constant urge to leave the field and become a plumber?

#287

Post by rightbyte »

sjg007 wrote: post #236
pessimizer wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like a lot of replies like this assume that everybody is an upper-middle class white kid who hasn't had to shovel shit before. I've had a lot of much worse jobs than being a mechanic; jobs where I looked up from what I was doing when the mechanic walked in with unbelievable jealousy. I'm counting the days until CoPilot suddenly turns a bunch of John Galts into Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists, but an additiona…

Honestly same for most doctors too. They are just human body mechanics.

On the other hand being a mechanic is a very high skill trade.

Re: Anyone else feel the constant urge to leave the field and become a plumber?

#288

Post by dionidium »

I am in my early 40s and have been a software engineer my entire career. Lately, I can't bring myself to care about this or that new framework, but I have spent hundreds of hours watching electrician videos on YouTube and have been joking with my wife that I'm going to quit my job and become an apprentice electrician.

So, yeah. This resonates.

But recently I watched a video where a guy had to do his ten millionth ceiling fan install and he had some particular trouble getting to where he needed to be in the customer's attic and he was filthy and hot and probably bored by this stupid task he'd done a million times and in that moment I realized I was idealizing and over-extrapolating from the excitement of learning a new skill.

Learning to wire my own house was fun and interesting. I don't want to do it every day for strangers.

Re: Anyone else feel the constant urge to leave the field and become a plumber?

#289

Post by verisimi »

lokalfarm wrote: post #197
verisimi wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I reckon both these jobs plus general building work, are much better than working on computers. We have bodies and _need_ physicality in our work, not just theory. Those sort of trades do present problems like coding does - your brain is still engaged (a bit). However, I think you are also adding/improving people's lives. Fix someone's dirty toilet? That is clearly a good thing. I can't think of one thing in my compu…

This is a very shallow view of what it means to be working as a plumber... As someone who spent a couple years doing commercial plumbing: 1) You are lifting very heavy 10-20ft long sticks of cast iron pipe, often 10+ ft in the air. There is technology to aid with this (scissor lifts) but it is brutal work. 2) You spend a lot of time in the air - on ladders or lifts - often overhanging the edges. You are constantly dr…

I hear you. Sorry you think its a shallow view! but I thank you for your thoughts. I have done some plumbing of my own - I can personally verify that I never felt comfortable - always contorted!

Managers/foremen etc are asses the world over. I was really addressing the work. And I thought I picked a pretty unpleasant example in dirty toilets!

I contrast the work you do with work I have done. I was making a moral point.

I have worked in financial and other institutions. I really see no value in what I have contributed. If I achieved something, its that the shareholders of those institutions were happier in being able to squeeze a bit more life-force for themselves from others. I helped the fat cats get a little fatter.

BTW - I think you wreck your body sitting in front of a machine all day. I accept that coding is not as overtly dangerous though!

Re: Anyone else feel the constant urge to leave the field and become a plumber?

#290

Post by gwern »

malshe wrote: post #259
RHSeeger wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We were not sure about the extent of the damage > He charged a cool $350 to simply replace the tap No, he charged you $350 for his knowledge that replacing the tap was the right solution in this case. If all you had to do was replace the tap, you could have done that yourself and saved a bunch of money. But you didn't know that was all that needed to be done; he did. You paid for his knowledge, not simply the act o…

I’ve seen this argument a lot. It’s was just changing a tap. I don’t have to pay $350 to just someone look at it and tell me your don’t have any damage.

You just wrote, "We were not sure about the extent of the damage". So yes, you did need to pay someone that.
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