There are two essays about awful work that I like to contrast. One is George Orwell writing about 1930s coal miners: http://www.george-orwell.org/Down_The_Mine/

There are two essays about awful work that I like to contrast. One is George Orwell writing about 1930s coal miners: http://www.george-orwell.org/Down_The_Mine/0.html http://www.george-orwell.org/Down_The_Mine/0.html The other is "I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave" by Mac McLelland in Mother Jones magazine, writing about working in a fulfillment center in 2012: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-free-online-shipping-warehouses-labor http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-f... It seems to me that mining was vastly more physically demanding and dangerous, to the extent that when McLelland complains about physical hardship at the fulfillment center I'm unsympathetic; and that fulfillment center work is vastly more dehumanizing, in contrast to the miners who, for all their toil, had pride in what they do.