781–790 of 915 posts
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Not to mention RSI, eye problems, and other issues from performance-enhancing drugs lots of tech workers take to stay focused
Is that a thing? I don't think taking "performance enhancing drugs" is safe or allowed in my country, and I would definitely report coworkers to HR if I would find out they did. It's not fair to compete against someone like that.
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It may feel better at the time but repetitive motions in most physical jobs will eventually catch up with your body. In an office job you can exercise on your own terms and without long term chronic pain.
I don't know, when I used to work on farms, the old guys were a lot healthier than most of the people I see in tech nowadays. Although, most of that work isn't unhealthily repetitive, like jack-hammering or something, so perhaps not a great example. But, use-it-or-lose-it is a real thing.
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You've done some of the work, but do you know many middle-aged or older tradespeople? Their joints are shot and they have aches all over and they fuck up their back on the regular. There's your speculation and incredulity, and then there's all the people I've talked to who do it. They disagree with you.
I fucked up my back regularly until I'd had enough and started doing a lot of back strengthening exercises, which virtually eliminated the problem. Been doing them ever since. The doc who helped me with this told me that back injuries come from weak backs. You have to specifically work on those muscles to avoid injury. I found out when waterskiing that you don't get strong waterskiing, you get injured. You have to sp…
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FWIW I paid about $100 an outlet recently (as part of a much larger project). Yes you can get 99 cent receptacles at Home Depot, yes they will be crap (residential grade) and likely not up to code. NEC requires all circuits in the kitchen and bathroom be GFCI protected, and all kitchen outlets to also be tamper resistant. A GFCI, non-TR receptacle costs bout $15 at Home Depot, and again you're talking bargain basemen…
To be clear, the $50 was labor only.
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Their income would be high enough not to benefit from that safety net anyway. You would end up paying the same.
If the parent comment meant universal healthcare, you'd absolutely see the lack of health insurance premiums reflected in prices. As a contractor, it's definitely a chunk of my rate.
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That's where all the jobs have been in the last five years in his area. His teams are also doing commercial wiring as well, but new builds dominate the work. And they are supposed to complete jobs fast - even if the work is simple doing it fast is not easy. And so what? "You can succeed if you go into trades... but make sure you don't end up in some of these widespread roles" is a very different narrative than what i…
> "You can succeed if you go into trades... but make sure you don't end up in some of these widespread roles" Everyone I know in the trades "put in their dues" with at least 10 years of working for someone else, doing the shit jobs, working outside in the rain, in the mud, in the heat, in crawlspaces, in attics, etc. The smart, driven ones learn all they can, advance, build relationships and reputation, and start the…
And even that, management and business skills are not the same thing as being good tradesman. Just like with programming, you can be smart and driven and not be management material.
The question was whether trades arw good occupation. Not whether you can be better off by stopping being tradesman and going into management.
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And you have to go do it. I love working behind a computer. I sit in a chair. Waking up at 5am to go to a client site to do some physical labor 40+ hours a week for my entire life sounds like hell. Even if the money was incredible it would suck.
I wonder if maybe modern bodies aren’t built for manual labor? I’d love to talk with any of the millions of voluntary and involuntary manual laborers from the past 200 years and learn about how they made it through their lifetimes working in fields and factories in stress positions under substandard conditions. To be honest, I guess we could just interact with and ask present day laborers across the globe cranking ou…
Lets imagine a hypothetical a job like unloading 50 kg bags from trucks and say you carry them up stairs to the 3rd floor. Or let them be 20 kg bags, 1 floor.
You can find a person who can do one 50 kg bag + 3 floors, lots of people can do multiple 20 kg bags. But how many can you expect an employee to do in a day? How fast is a reasonable demand? The answer is simple if you look at it from a training program perspective: If you can do 1 bag (of either kind) you keep doing it until you are tired or until it starts to hurt ever so slightly. You do this 3 days per week. You grow and grow until eventually you can hurl bags easily for hours. You could in theory keep training until you can comfortably do 50 kg bags, 3 floors, 8 hours long. It would take forever ofc. 20 kg, 1 floor is doable. You train until you can do a whole shift 3 days per week. Keep at it for a while then add a 4th day and eventually a 5th.
If you however push yourself a bit harder than you should, by not quitting when you had enough and/or going for 5 days to early you don't grow! You just destroy your body and if you destroy your health sufficiently you wont get used to the work in this life time. One slightly to long vacation might break you.
The moral of the story is that in some places you see these seemingly impossible mountains of men do absolutely insane amounts of absolutely insane work and it doesn't seem to bother them.
The bean counters understand non of this. They want 8 hours, preferably on a salary that doesn't afford a perfect diet and adds extra units of stress that should be subtracted from the training results or added to the injury list.
In many countries you cant even take employees blood pressure, measure heart rate or test their blood for nutrients. Some guys driving a desk decided that is a violation of peoples privacy.
Manual laborers 200 years ago spend a good amount of time outside and got a good amount of vitamin D.
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/15050-vitamin... > Vitamin D deficiency is a common global issue. About 1 billion people worldwide have vitamin D deficiency, while 50% of the population has vitamin D insufficiency. Approximately 35% of adults in the United States have vitamin D deficiency.
If you are looking to push the human body to the limit the year round getting out of the deficiency zone is not enough. About 100% gets insufficient D the year round.
I tell our bean counters that if they want to see more work done they have to give us a solarium with UVB lamps and pay people to use it.
There is nothing like seeing people hold 2 contradictory thoughts at the same time. They all know I'm 100% right and they know it 100% cant happen.
Unless ofc they subscribe to the official pseudoscience: https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/indoor-tannin...
Good level D is positively correlated with endurance performance, muscle strength and with a lower rate of injuries. Anything less and you become fragile or a jellyfish. If you see someone do hard work your limbs snap off.
I also suggest they serve the employees meat (protein) during work to avoid them eating something stupid like sandwiches during lunch then a pizza or mcdonalds after work.
It honest to god feels like talking to a different species.
Recently they tried to explain to me the concept of working harder because they cant find employees. I tried to explain them being unable to find employees means I'm going to do less work and go home early. We all have our tasks. I did a great job. They couldn't find employees? It seems so simple? Give me more money, I will do more work, others will come if the price is right?
It's a lovely job, I bust my ass, pay is crap but my thoughts are my own and the employer has to put up with my bullshit. I can just walk away, there is plenty of grunt work and I can jockey a desk too! I drive a really fast desk. It's lovely to see a plan come together or to slap a bunch of code together and see it do its thing. It's all the same really, you get to be impressed by your own abilities, accomplishment or if both fail by the compensation :)
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And you have to go do it. I love working behind a computer. I sit in a chair. Waking up at 5am to go to a client site to do some physical labor 40+ hours a week for my entire life sounds like hell. Even if the money was incredible it would suck.
Perhaps it's a case of "the grass is always greener", but before I became a software engineer, I felt much healthier doing a physical job.
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You can mitigate that by taking frequent breaks, and getting a standing desk. How can you mitigate wear to your body while working for the trades?
How can you mitigate burn out/mental health issues caused by lack of human interactions and working in the hugely competitive field?