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From Burned Out Tech CEO to Amazon Warehouse Associate

jasonshen.com

121–130 of 352 posts

Re: From Burned Out Tech CEO to Amazon Warehouse Associate

#121
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How dare he find meaning in things that are different from you. Congratulations on figuring out how to find fulfillment and a balanced life before the rest of us. Philip's journey toward that is clearly different from yours.

I just find it kind of worrisome that he finds meaning in work that other people are exploited for for a lack of better options. Why would a financially independent person choose to help enrich a large corporation over, say, voluntary work to help underprivileged people, animals or whatever else you can think of?

A lot of feel-good jobs have an unfortunate public facing component. There are segments of the population that treat service workers with contempt or sometimes even violence.

Retail workers and social workers dealt with the worst of it, teachers deal with this behind the scenes, and nurses and doctors became (more) exposed to this over the pandemic. People don’t put up with emotional, verbal and sometimes physical abuse, and they shouldn’t.

Re: From Burned Out Tech CEO to Amazon Warehouse Associate

#122

This person seems like they are suffering from typical tech bubble non-awareness disease. They always strive to make the world a better place as… a director of Facebook. Debatable. Early retirement is such a nightmare for me that.. I became an Amazon Warehouse Associate out of boredom? I’m not sure how any of this narcissism is making the world a better place.

Did you actually read the article? He's probably the one person in tech that is directly aware of what it's like to work at a warehouse because he actually did it for real. He's not claiming to be "making the world a better place" by working at Facebook. He's telling the story of how he got burned out from that world and sought out a real "honest labor" job that he'd heard a ton about in the media to snap out of it a…

> What more could someone possibly do to wave off the label of "tech bubble non-awareness disease," in your opinion?

Going from rich to working in a warehouse until you feel like leaving is not the same experience as working a warehouse because you feel like eating.

Re: From Burned Out Tech CEO to Amazon Warehouse Associate

#123
post #9

"The experience was physically taxing, he was diagnosed with tendonitis after moving hundreds of boxes a day, but it pulled him out of his depression and helped him gain perspective and a deeper sense of meaning"....... I have mixed feelings about this. What this has proven is working at amazon warehouse sucks, and is not sustainable. I've had many physical shitty jobs in my 20's. Then, I had some health issue and co…

Physical work is great in a controlled environment. Hence, the gym. No need to destroy ones body doing physical labor, if it can be avoided.

Re: From Burned Out Tech CEO to Amazon Warehouse Associate

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If all jobs had the same salary, benefits, career path, etc, there is no way I'd trade software development for a job involving strenuous physical labor.

I would. Imagine getting paid to be outdoors in the sun getting exercise. Imagine not having to spend an extra hour each day in a crowded gym doing boring repetitive movements because your sedentary job would ruin your body otherwise. Imagine not having posture and back problems at age 30. Imagine having the output of a hard days work be a physical object you can point to your son and say “see? I made that”.

A lot of physical jobs will happily ruin your body, and give you posture, back and knee problems at age 30.

Re: From Burned Out Tech CEO to Amazon Warehouse Associate

#125

This person seems like they are suffering from typical tech bubble non-awareness disease. They always strive to make the world a better place as… a director of Facebook. Debatable. Early retirement is such a nightmare for me that.. I became an Amazon Warehouse Associate out of boredom? I’m not sure how any of this narcissism is making the world a better place.

Yes, the entire thing was cringe.

But it's not just a tech bubble thing; it's more of a 6-figure yuppie thing. I knew a doctor making $500k/year in L.A. who insisted on taking vacations in disaster zones, etc., as a tourist (not with Doctors w/o Borders) so he could "experience human suffering" and "become empathetic" to his fellow men through their "shared suffering" of being in the same approximate location as people who were starving or seriously wounded.

He doesn't actually do anything with this "increased empathy." He just feels like it makes his EQ super high or something silly like that.

Re: From Burned Out Tech CEO to Amazon Warehouse Associate

#127
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Working at amazon as an order picker is depressing, soul sucking and can wreck your body for the remainder of your life. Devs can get by working few hours a day, some barely do any work at all. I refuse to stare at a screen 8+ hours a day. I take healthy breaks and create boundaries. I rarely have to solve puzzles at work. The grunt of the work is almost the same thing over and over.

Devs can get by working few hours a day, some barely do any work at all Not sure how others here feel, but I have to say that when I've found myself in situations where there isn't much work to be done I find it utterly soul destroying. Always feel guilty doing anything else in down-time when I'm billing a client and so sometimes end up sitting in a weird stand by mode, feeling like I'm somehow being lazy.

You can always add metrics to your functions, refactor your code, improve your deploy process, write more tests, etc.

Re: From Burned Out Tech CEO to Amazon Warehouse Associate

#128
post #9

"The experience was physically taxing, he was diagnosed with tendonitis after moving hundreds of boxes a day, but it pulled him out of his depression and helped him gain perspective and a deeper sense of meaning"....... I have mixed feelings about this. What this has proven is working at amazon warehouse sucks, and is not sustainable. I've had many physical shitty jobs in my 20's. Then, I had some health issue and co…

> I have mixed feelings about this. What this has proven is working at amazon warehouse sucks, and is not sustainable. Sure it is, as soon as you realize employees are replaceable commodities that get used up like break pads. Sustainable for the individual? Obviously not. Sustainable for amazon. Of course, which is why it won't be changing.

It's not sustainable for amazon-ish [1]. They offer higher wages than competitors because they need to keep accumulating new employees or convincing old ones to come back.

[1]: https://www.google.com/search?q=amazon+run+out+employees+to+...

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