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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

#281

Post by textcortex »

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…

Loudly laughed at the Black Mirror part :) True, I also agree this is kind of a privileged shit job tour

Re: From Burned Out Tech CEO to Amazon Warehouse Associate

#282

Post by kramerger »

If you are ever in the same situation: don't make yourself Bezos slave, instead get a damn hobby. And no, gaming does not count.

Things like woodworking and metalworking can give you a physical and also a mental excerise, and feels much more rewarding than playing he's or shopping. It can also be quite social as there are tons of people with similar hobbies, maker fares and meeting places.

And yes, if you like it but miss being able to support yourself financially you can probably turn it into a business

Re: From Burned Out Tech CEO to Amazon Warehouse Associate

#283

Post by emptyfile »

Aperocky wrote: post #197
eckza wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why deny his experience, though? Because it was an option. He treated it like poverty tourism, like a middle-class youth group "missions trip" to build huts for third-world natives. Good on him for having an epiphany, but I'd wager that he'd have a different perspective if he had to do that job long past his soft-handed tendonitis episode in order to feed his family that he barely mentioned in his interview. Imagin…

> He treated it like poverty tourism, like a middle-class youth group "missions trip" to build huts for third-world natives. "mission trips" are not real poverty tourism though. Kids don't go live in real poverty on those trips. They live in hotels, eat prepared food, so on. The author did move 300 boxes per hour for a whole month.

You misunderstand, these kids don't go to live in poverty, they go to watch poverty.

Same, for the full experience the author should've sold his house and lived on his salary.

Re: From Burned Out Tech CEO to Amazon Warehouse Associate

#284

Post by badpun »

theonething wrote: post #196
AlotOfReading wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man, I'd go back to being an archaeologist in a heartbeat. I like software, but the whole corporate thing gets old real fast.

do both. archaeology software

Or software archeology! (going through interesting old code bases and documenting them for posterity).

Re: From Burned Out Tech CEO to Amazon Warehouse Associate

#285

Post by badpun »

symlinkk wrote: post #64
humanistbot wrote: post #48

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”.

> Imagine getting paid to be outdoors in the sun getting exercise.

Combine that with - imagine being outside when it's cold, windy and raining - and you still have to do an 8 hour shift in those conditions. At minimum, it sounds like a fast-track to arthritis (a painful and non-curable condition that will plague you for the rest of your life). Or, imagine doing hard, physical labor for 8 hours in sweltering heat, which makes other human people avoid going out at all.

Re: From Burned Out Tech CEO to Amazon Warehouse Associate

#286

Post by bxtt »

ornornor wrote: post #262
bxtt wrote: post #247

My parents post-retirement after not working for 10+ years both found roles at an Amazon Fulfillment Center - one at the ship dock and the other in returns. They are both in their 70s and built a nice nest for themselves, neither need it for the money. In fact, my dad was a machine learning professor, multiple publications, and they ran a small medium sized business for 20+ years (at their peak they were running 80M…

But then why enable such a shitty company actively working at eroding human dignity at work and make a billionaire asshole even richer instead if doing actual good like working at, say, a food bank or ant other charity?

I can’t speak for their intent. It has less to do with the altruism or the “mission” and more on their personal well being. My dad survived multiple cancers and after he got his strength back, he wanted to build back up his strength. It’s the structure of the system that helps him. He was telling me about their productivity KPIs, and he sees them as fitness goals - as he builds pallets per hour, etc.

My mom spent the better part of her life as the “COO” of their business, so after being retired for so long, she seeks the mental stimulation of work. They’ve never worked in a corporate office, so seeing the structure and thinking behind Amazon amazes her. They’ve always had their own warehouses, distribution centers, trucking, etc. but they built that from the ground up and never scaled because they were “learning on the job”. Never seen what good looks like.

They both keep to themselves. No one in their section know about their backgrounds.

Re: From Burned Out Tech CEO to Amazon Warehouse Associate

#287

Post by leehuffman »

mancerayder wrote: post #229
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Erm you can definitely make six figures doing physical work. Have to imagine that’s a pretty decent fraction of your salary. You’re not going to do that though, because that work is hard and desk/computer shit is easy af in comparison with banger pay & benefits. Cool story though I guess.

Re: From Burned Out Tech CEO to Amazon Warehouse Associate

#288

Post by kramerger »

oldsklgdfth wrote: post #171
Bakary wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you work in a FAANG (presumably as some sort of knowledge worker) you have a unique opportunity to never have to work again within just a few years of saving.

I could do that and then go work at the Costco food court. Somehow that doesn't feel any less like larping. On a serious note, how does one do that? It doesn't "feel" that way, but I know that's lifestyle inflation.

I once took a "down shift" job and it didn't work well.

After only a few days I started seeing inefficiencies, some people slacking like crazy while others had to work for two, management that was really incompetent and could not be convinced to improve anything.

I mean, people were nice and everything and I enjoyed the social aspects of the job, but I learned that I was too competitive to function in a less demanding job

Re: From Burned Out Tech CEO to Amazon Warehouse Associate

#289

Post by pcthrowaway »

adamwk wrote: post #199
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.

He is recommending the experience though: > If I had it my way, tech workers wouldn’t take sabbaticals just to climb Machu Picchu or see Antarctica — some subset of them, the set for whom the malaise I’m describing resonates, would instead take their sabbatical at an Amazon warehouse.

I thought you were kidding, but this is actually in part 2 of the interview.

I guess the author is happy about transitioning from depression to living in a fantasy world with no basis in reality, but I think most of us would prefer to keep our vacations... vacations

Re: From Burned Out Tech CEO to Amazon Warehouse Associate

#290

Post by koide »

Temporary_31337 wrote: post #273
enemywalker wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Michael Phelps is probably the only most valid extreme example! https://olympics.com/en/featured-news/michael-phelps-10000-c...

Lots of ultra distance runners and cyclists eat and burn more than that. The point is with sufficient exercise it is almost impossible to stay fat.

And the counterpoint is that most people aren't able to do that much exercise. Because it's A LOT. Basically full time athletes or highly physical workers. So that excludes all people with a sedentary or only partially physically demanding work.
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