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As a teenager during the summers working for my father driving frontend loader. I sat in a AC cab and screened top soil all day. I went to work at 7am and left

As a teenager during the summers working for my father driving frontend loader. I sat in a AC cab and screened top soil all day. I went to work at 7am and left around 4pm. I didn't have a care in the world after 4pm. It wasn't just because I had no bills to pay, I just didn't worry about work. I knew the pile of dirt wasn't going anywhere and the area we were digging out was going to be the same when I got back to work. I never brought work home. It took me a good 14 years to re-learn that in tech.

maruhan2 9y ago
I always find it somewhat ironic that I spent all this time preparing myself to get a good career in tech when repetitive manual labor seems to be the happiest
- hijinks 9y ago
  couldn't agree more.. 10 years ago I was at the Apple store in Manhattan with my wife getting an iphone. There was this guy who's job it was just to sweep the stairs going down to the store. I told my wife.. If I could somehow make a tech salary doing what he does, I'd do it in a second. She questioned me like why? I just said what I said before. I could come home and not worry about anything.
  - zuck9 9y ago
    What are some of the worries you bring home?
    - hijinks 9y ago
      I do ops work so it was always worrying about i'm on call 24/7 since I mostly worked for startups. Are the backups working. Is that new HA solution I rolled out working. I have this lingering problem with disk latency I can't get to the bottom. List goes on and on.
monknomo 9y ago
I had a similar experience with a summer job clearing brush, painting stuff and stacking 50 gal drums at a fuel tank farm. Didn't have to think while I'm there, could tell when I was done (are there still trees on the fence line? not done). Never once thought about work when I wasn't at work. I actually developed pecs and a 2-pack from all the brush trimming. Miss that, for sure $15/hr which was great money at the time.

maruhan2 9y ago

I always find it somewhat ironic that I spent all this time preparing myself to get a good career in tech when repetitive manual labor seems to be the happiest

hijinks 9y ago
couldn't agree more.. 10 years ago I was at the Apple store in Manhattan with my wife getting an iphone. There was this guy who's job it was just to sweep the stairs going down to the store. I told my wife.. If I could somehow make a tech salary doing what he does, I'd do it in a second. She questioned me like why? I just said what I said before. I could come home and not worry about anything.
- zuck9 9y ago
  What are some of the worries you bring home?
  - hijinks 9y ago
    I do ops work so it was always worrying about i'm on call 24/7 since I mostly worked for startups. Are the backups working. Is that new HA solution I rolled out working. I have this lingering problem with disk latency I can't get to the bottom. List goes on and on.

monknomo 9y ago

I had a similar experience with a summer job clearing brush, painting stuff and stacking 50 gal drums at a fuel tank farm. Didn't have to think while I'm there, could tell when I was done (are there still trees on the fence line? not done). Never once thought about work when I wasn't at work. I actually developed pecs and a 2-pack from all the brush trimming. Miss that, for sure $15/hr which was great money at the time.