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99% of the world has a job they can't afford to take leave from. and if you imagine that 99% of the world doesn't have a job that's taxing enough that they'd be

99% of the world has a job they can't afford to take leave from. and if you imagine that 99% of the world doesn't have a job that's taxing enough that they'd be burnt out then you don't understand menial labor and how utterly psychologically exhausting it is to do repetitive boring tasks. So what then? People suffer and struggle and try to improve the lives of their children and then they die. I say all this not because I'm the first one to realize it but because it's worth repeating. Hopefully someone reads it and it occurs to them how unfair it is.

thrower123 7y ago
Mindless repetitive tasks are just fine. You don't have to think about what you're doing, so you are free to let your mind wander to better places. I've done this sort of thing for years, I know what I'm talking about. Mental labor is crushing.
- i_haz_rabies 7y ago
  A summer of thinning apples 7am-6pm was one of the most skull-numbing, awful jobs I've ever had. I would rather try my luck living by myself in the tundra than do that for my whole life.
- wnkrshm 7y ago
  The manufacturing work where you have to use humans is usually not as devoid of mental work as may think - things change all the time in your environment, you have to identify different kinds of things to be aware about. If you're part of a production chain, how many parts are coming down the line? Am I letting people wait further down the line? For many manufacturing steps in a production line you need to manage an amount of tools and parts and keep control of your 'caches' because when you are not working on a part coming down the line, you're preparing intermediate steps, to be able to keep the pace. Edit: And this task switching all the time can make it hard to get into any kind of flow state with the work. Because the 'disturbances' don't happen in a constant rhythm.
- alicorn 7y ago
  I did a summer working at a printing house where we assembled printed calendars by hand (post-soviet country, people were cheap, machines were horrendously expensive). The job consisted of walking around a long table in a circle and assembling all pages for a calendar, then putting it in a pile for further processing by someone else. 6am - 3pm all day every day. That job instilled a burning need to never, ever be at a place where something similar is what I need to do for a living, that I feel to this day. It was absolutely crushing.
cableshaft 7y ago
I've done both repetitive boring jobs and mentally taxing jobs. Repetitive boring jobs were not psychologically exhausting for me, at least the ones I did (I worked a couple of warehouse jobs one sorting and inspecting parts before they were sent to an assembly line, and another sorting merchandise coming off a truck, stuffing envelopes/shrinkwrapping for shipping and receiving, data entry, etc). They can be physically exhausting, especially if you work long hours, but not psychologically. Since my brain didn't need to be taxed I got to let my mind wander and think about things for 8+ hours a day, or have audiobooks play, or whatever, and I still had mental energy afterwards to work on personal projects. Mentally taxing jobs steal that energy away from you. They tend to pay more, but they take your creative and mental energy away in exchange. And my mental and creative energy is more valuable to me. At least with the more physical jobs I was able to stay in shape a lot more easily.

thrower123 7y ago

Mindless repetitive tasks are just fine. You don't have to think about what you're doing, so you are free to let your mind wander to better places. I've done this sort of thing for years, I know what I'm talking about. Mental labor is crushing.

i_haz_rabies 7y ago
A summer of thinning apples 7am-6pm was one of the most skull-numbing, awful jobs I've ever had. I would rather try my luck living by myself in the tundra than do that for my whole life.
wnkrshm 7y ago
The manufacturing work where you have to use humans is usually not as devoid of mental work as may think - things change all the time in your environment, you have to identify different kinds of things to be aware about. If you're part of a production chain, how many parts are coming down the line? Am I letting people wait further down the line? For many manufacturing steps in a production line you need to manage an amount of tools and parts and keep control of your 'caches' because when you are not working on a part coming down the line, you're preparing intermediate steps, to be able to keep the pace. Edit: And this task switching all the time can make it hard to get into any kind of flow state with the work. Because the 'disturbances' don't happen in a constant rhythm.
alicorn 7y ago
I did a summer working at a printing house where we assembled printed calendars by hand (post-soviet country, people were cheap, machines were horrendously expensive). The job consisted of walking around a long table in a circle and assembling all pages for a calendar, then putting it in a pile for further processing by someone else. 6am - 3pm all day every day. That job instilled a burning need to never, ever be at a place where something similar is what I need to do for a living, that I feel to this day. It was absolutely crushing.

cableshaft 7y ago

I've done both repetitive boring jobs and mentally taxing jobs. Repetitive boring jobs were not psychologically exhausting for me, at least the ones I did (I worked a couple of warehouse jobs one sorting and inspecting parts before they were sent to an assembly line, and another sorting merchandise coming off a truck, stuffing envelopes/shrinkwrapping for shipping and receiving, data entry, etc). They can be physically exhausting, especially if you work long hours, but not psychologically. Since my brain didn't need to be taxed I got to let my mind wander and think about things for 8+ hours a day, or have audiobooks play, or whatever, and I still had mental energy afterwards to work on personal projects. Mentally taxing jobs steal that energy away from you. They tend to pay more, but they take your creative and mental energy away in exchange. And my mental and creative energy is more valuable to me. At least with the more physical jobs I was able to stay in shape a lot more easily.