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From Burned Out Tech CEO to Amazon Warehouse Associate

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Re: From Burned Out Tech CEO to Amazon Warehouse Associate

#221

Post by throwaway2037 »

markdown wrote: post #59
avgDev wrote: 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…

[flagged]

I didn't know about Mike Rowe before this post. Thanks.

Wiki says: >

Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Rowe

Re: From Burned Out Tech CEO to Amazon Warehouse Associate

#222

Post by heliodor »

gnrlst wrote: post #23

I have a sense of guilt when I compare myself to my high school friends who have to work longer, work harder, and get paid significantly less. They are just as smart, they just made different choices. And this sense of guilt and of feeling like I don't deserve it just compounds the imposter syndrome to the point I can't even enjoy what I have because I think that at any moment I'll be "discovered" and lose everything…

The feeling should be that they deserve more, not that you deserve less. It's not that you're an imposter, it's that they need to be "discovered" and given more. Or they should go make different choices if they want. Nonetheless, while they "give up" some things, they gain other things with their choices, which you don't have. For example, they might have clear work hours, they might not take work home mentally, they might have more time with the family, etc.

Re: From Burned Out Tech CEO to Amazon Warehouse Associate

#223

Post by neilc »

nsxwolf wrote: post #82
madrox wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the author is recommending their experience. He's merely talking about what he did and what happened. We've known for millennia that physical work sucks. That's why the lowest echelons of society always end up doing the worst of it. This, I think, is why previous generations were so emphatic about college education. In their experience, it was a ticket out of doing physically taxing work.

Overly taxing and dangerous physical work sucks. Working in a professional kitchen is some of the most fun and (non-monetary) rewarding work I've ever done.

I’d love to hear more about your experience working in a professional kitchen.

Re: From Burned Out Tech CEO to Amazon Warehouse Associate

#224

Post by voxelghost »

avgDev wrote: post #44
symlinkk wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software development is taxing on your brain the same way physical labor is taxing on your body. It’s depressing, soul sucking work. You’re stuck inside, staring at a screen for 8+ hours a day.

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.

Dev work is not digging a tunnel under Mordor with a screw driver, but it is forcing your brain to do things brains were never meant to do in a situation they can never make better, ten to fifteen hours a day, five to seven days a week, and every one of them is slowly going mad.

https://www.stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks

Re: From Burned Out Tech CEO to Amazon Warehouse Associate

#225

Post by theGnuMe »

thrown_22 wrote: post #152
tristor wrote: post #61

I read the article, and... I get it. But something about this just seems weird to me. I grew up mostly on a family farm, worked every day of my life in some capacity since I was 9 or 10 years old, and did shit jobs to pay for college (which I eventually dropped out of right before graduation). I don't think my route into tech is that different from many of the other folks I've worked with... this guy lived a /very/ c…

Life is fundamentally unpleasant and once you have your basic daily needs met you have time to develop mental issues. In the west basically everyone including the homeless don't have to worry about being eaten, murdered, starving or dying from exposure. This leaves a lot of leeway for everyone to think how bad they have it while historically being in the top 1%. It's rather hard to have empathy for someone who has it…

I hear what you are trying to say but mental issues don't discriminate.

Re: From Burned Out Tech CEO to Amazon Warehouse Associate

#226

Post by tobyjsullivan »

avgDev wrote: post #102
tobyjsullivan wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might be surprised to learn that for every dev working “few hours a day” or barely doing anything at all, there is another engineer doing all their work for them - usually in a constant state of fending off burnout due to having to do other peoples’ work in addition to their own.

That other engineer is actually a problem. He is accomplishing nothing by grinding 8+ hours a day and will burn out, most deadlines are bullshit. Nobody can sustain that much work for a long period of time. I would much rather be a good well rounded reasonable dev than someone doing others work. That is a huge red flag. Every dev should be responsible for THEIR work, not their team mates. Unless of course they are do…

> most deadlines are bullshit

Arbitrary deadlines are bullshit but I never mentioned deadlines. At the end of the day, people get paid to do a job and businesses earn revenues by doing things. Someone needs to do those things, and if these hypothetical developers "barely doing any work at all" aren't doing it, someone has to at the end of the day or everyone is going home.

Re: From Burned Out Tech CEO to Amazon Warehouse Associate

#227

Post by sarchertech »

ziddoap wrote: post #213
sarchertech wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the mainly part is correct, but 12 hours of running like 6-7k calories for an 150 lbs. person. As you get heavier it’s going to go up fast (and non linearly)—essentially any kind of extreme exercise is going to put an upper limit on your weight. I’m unsure if your body can even process 10k calories in day. The basal metabolic rate for a 1000 lbs person isn’t that high.

They were making a point with an exaggerated example, not suggesting that 12 hours of running or 10k calories/day is actually reasonable.

I never said that the OP implied it was reasonable. My point is that there's a level of activity at which you likely can't eat enough to get fat.

Re: From Burned Out Tech CEO to Amazon Warehouse Associate

#229

Post by mancerayder »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #70
avgDev wrote: 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…

> What this has proven is working at amazon warehouse sucks, and is not sustainable. This person went from a 23-year career sitting at a desk to doing physical labor all day. Any physical labor is going to take a toll on someone in their 40s who hasn't been doing physical labor. I have a lot of people in my extended social circle who are in physical labor jobs. Amazon Warehouse jobs are always viewed as the "easy" fa…

Perhaps, but the epidemic of sedentary lifestyle has lead to a large suite of problems, ranging from miserable back pain to cardiovascular problems to diabetes. The average office worker can barely run a mile, do a pullup, squat below parallel with their bodyweight, or climb a flight of stairs without panting.

Some of us spend hours a week compensating for this. If lifting boxes and carrying them around all day long paid a fraction of the salary I have, I think I would take it in a heartbeat. It sounds delightful. You prefer to be in meetings for 6 hours a day and scramble to code in between them? And let me guess, no neck pain and daily headaches for you right ?

Re: From Burned Out Tech CEO to Amazon Warehouse Associate

#230

Post by necovek »

WesternWind wrote: post #161
missedthecue wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other way to look at this is that Amazon actually reports injuries. My brother worked at a "mom & pop" carpet warehouse and they wouldn't report anything unless it resulted in a hospital visit i.e. broken bones, high blood loss, concussion, etc...

Perhaps that's true, though I tend to think OSHA and equivalent bodies actually know what they are doing. Still even if they are the same, if more than 1 in 20 workers gets a serious injury at work at any job, I think that's an issue.

I think the rate is much higher for most of professional sports.

Which does not make me disagree with your take (I jokingly call all those kinesio tapes "doping" as well: they help tendons and muscles take loads they can't take naturally).

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