Have spent a lot of my life doing manual labor, and still slightly in that boat now but do have a proper office job (receptionist). it was incredible for me to experience my first office job and realize this general fact. Not only was my body not sore everyday, but my day was suddenly largely my own, my "labor" was suddenly not defined necessarily by constant action. I dont even really have to think as much as I did working in a kitchen, say.
Its just important to realize that this relationship with labor is a privilege, because trust me, its not "everyone". If that privilege is obtained because you provide something more "skilled", ok, I guess I understand that. There is still an instinctual level where it still feels unjust to me. But thats just my emotions, I understand economics trumps them.
It's a huge privilege! In high school and college I worked a bunch of random jobs, including factory worker, McDonald's cook, and convenience store cashier. It helped me really appreciate the cushiness of office jobs.
But in some ways, it's the source of ongoing frustration. Office culture IME is not very interested in getting direct work done. When I was on the McDonald's breakfast shift, I had a solid block of hours where people knew not to bother me unless something was literally on fire. I could get into a glorious flow state. Even managers, even visiting execs knew to button their lips until the time was right. But these days? There are so many people who are happy to put 30 minutes on my calendar or interrupt me on Slack. They mean well; they just don't know anything else. How I wish they did!
The only thing in an office that gets close to the buzz/flow of a busy service, is dealing with an outage/incident. I miss elements of it, for sure. I do not miss working hard for 50+ hours a week at less than minimum wage (woo salaried).
I was at a construction site as field architect and the field work of a manager is nothing compared to that of the actual workers. So..
I tried coding at work, as I had a "lot" of spare time... and it was impossible.
The stressful state of mind makes it impossible to make anything related to coding... the sun, the heat, the stress.
Non skilled jobs, that are also menial and with this constant uncertain output, are a doom to those who work them(jobs) because they offer aboslute no progress to those who's lives depend on them. Intellectual and economical progress.
Yet I've found people obsessed with field work..
Its just important to realize that this relationship with labor is a privilege, because trust me, its not "everyone". If that privilege is obtained because you provide something more "skilled", ok, I guess I understand that. There is still an instinctual level where it still feels unjust to me. But thats just my emotions, I understand economics trumps them.