Spent like 4 years total, in my lower twenties, doing hard manual labor and my left shoulder is permanently fucked. No idea how those guys keep it up, anyone making it past 10 years has to be in constant agony if they haven't moved into subcontracting other workers or something
I did home renovation work for like 8 months. Some of the people in the crew practically destroyed their bodies doing that work for 20+ years. One of the drywall guys would have to use his left hand to loosen his right's grip on the knife because it would get locked up. There was another guy that was maybe 45-55 that walked hunched over like a 90 year old man.
I actually liked the work compared to other jobs I'd had, but the "work through the pain" culture was so toxic. Everyone would act like working hurt was both mandatory and something to be admired.
It's fine to be proud of being a hard worker, but being proud of destroying your body for a boss that wouldn't give a shit if you died is sad.
It's just not sustainable as a 40+ hour a week 8 hours a day job for human bodies. If it was like 20 hours a week or something, maybe, but there's just not enough time to recuperate. Half your day should basically be a break with this sort of job is my point, but you just get worked through it all and fuck yourself up
You also better hope you don't get injured doing the manual labor required and become unable to work
And that you still work for a robust trade union that hasn't been hollowed out
realistically even if you don't get a once-off injury doing manual labour for 40 hours a week will just fuck you up long term
Spent like 4 years total, in my lower twenties, doing hard manual labor and my left shoulder is permanently fucked. No idea how those guys keep it up, anyone making it past 10 years has to be in constant agony if they haven't moved into subcontracting other workers or something
I did home renovation work for like 8 months. Some of the people in the crew practically destroyed their bodies doing that work for 20+ years. One of the drywall guys would have to use his left hand to loosen his right's grip on the knife because it would get locked up. There was another guy that was maybe 45-55 that walked hunched over like a 90 year old man.
I actually liked the work compared to other jobs I'd had, but the "work through the pain" culture was so toxic. Everyone would act like working hurt was both mandatory and something to be admired.
It's fine to be proud of being a hard worker, but being proud of destroying your body for a boss that wouldn't give a shit if you died is sad.
It's just not sustainable as a 40+ hour a week 8 hours a day job for human bodies. If it was like 20 hours a week or something, maybe, but there's just not enough time to recuperate. Half your day should basically be a break with this sort of job is my point, but you just get worked through it all and fuck yourself up