"The experience was physically taxing, he was diagnosed with tendonitis after moving hundreds of boxes a day, but it pulled him out of his depression and helped him gain perspective and a deeper sense of meaning".......<p>I have mixed feelings about this. What this has proven is working at amazon warehouse sucks, and is not sustainable.<p>I've had many physical shitty jobs in my 20's. Then, I had some health issue and could no longer keep doing that to my body, so I went back to school and got a CS degree.<p>I sometimes get depressed and miss physical work, but then I remember how shit it was and how an injury would prevent me from working. As a dev I think I'm going to be able to earn money as long as I'm alive and have a functioning brain.<p>I guess once you have enough money then maybe someone might find that work fun? Obviously it helped the writer with depression. However, if he ever gets permanently hurt and it affects his daily life I have a feeling depression will come back in full swing. Office work is much much safer.<p>There are ways to help people through tech and have much bigger affect then moving boxes for a shitty company.<p>Edit: What helps my depression is connecting with people outside of work, helping people in my community, doing projects around my house and spending time with my son. Additionally, I try to make good choices when spending my money and limit my spending on stuff I don't need, as I dislike excessive spending.<p>Edit2: Some great comments below. This is very much poverty/shit job tourism, which the writer can escape at any moment. This is some BlackMirror type of content. Guy makes it big in tech, retires, now works shit job people are trying to escape to cure his depression. He then writes about it on a blog. Now, other non-aware devs might be reading it contemplating leaving their jobs to do a REAL job.
I read the article, and... I get it. But something about this just seems weird to me. I grew up mostly on a family farm, worked every day of my life in some capacity since I was 9 or 10 years old, and did shit jobs to pay for college (which I eventually dropped out of right before graduation). I don't think my route into tech is that different from many of the other folks I've worked with... this guy lived a /very/ charmed and privileged existence compared to the average American tech worker, and going to work at an Amazon warehouse to get a reality check seems... patronizing somehow. I am glad he got a reality check, but I feel like there's another way to do this, or at least how to write about it.
> I had what I would stereotype as a traditional Chinese upbringing in America, which meant my parents very much expected straight A's. Anytime a B happened, something had gone wrong. The explanation was never like you lack the talent or whatever, but that you didn’t work hard enough.<p>It sounds like the author never got a chance to figure out the intersection between what he liked to do and what he was actually good at. Instead, he was trained to respond to the approval of authority figures. So the true north of his internal compass pointed to whatever the person in charge at the time thought of him.<p>Fast forward to 2021:<p>> I think most people who dream of retirement think that it's going to be awesome. And it was—for about a month. I skied on weekdays, shopped at Target at 11am with nobody there, and played video games. But after several months of pursuing various hobbies as my whims and interests—all the things which people who aspire to retire young might look upon with envy—I felt unfulfilled. I became unmoored, set adrift in a sea of theoretical possibility only to drown in unbounded optionality. Novelty and excitement turned into a spiraling vortex of depression as I began to wake up sometimes at noon, sometimes 2pm, and on the rare occasion even getting out of bed at 6pm.<p>With no authority figure to send the positive vibes he craved, the author felt adrift. This is where the gig at Amazon comes in. Authority figures galore and a clear sense of what a job well done meant.<p>Some are chalking this up to poverty tourism. Maybe it's something else.
This person seems like they are suffering from typical tech bubble non-awareness disease. They always strive to make the world a better place as… a director of Facebook. Debatable. Early retirement is such a nightmare for me that.. I became an Amazon Warehouse Associate out of boredom? I’m not sure how any of this narcissism is making the world a better place.
I sometimes miss my old job hauling around boxes. It’s great exercise and you never have to take stress home with you. Good coworkers often times too<p>It just doesn’t pay enough to retire off of. Can’t easily build savings. Can’t easily pay for the dentist or other emergencies<p>Being a lead programmer pays a ton better. I just wish I wasn’t as stressful as it is
My parents post-retirement after not working for 10+ years both found roles at an Amazon Fulfillment Center - one at the ship dock and the other in returns. They are both in their 70s and built a nice nest for themselves, neither need it for the money. In fact, my dad was a machine learning professor, multiple publications, and they ran a small medium sized business for 20+ years (at their peak they were running 80M USD annual revenue). They both do it for the mental health and for the physical exercise. They meet a lot of people just like them, some of the workers are living in 3M+ USD homes - although most are not, it’s mostly kids that went to state schools and climb the FC ladder.
Working in a warehouse for 6 weeks is gruelling, and from the interview it sounds like he got a taste of that experience, but I think there's a marked difference between working for the novelty of it and working because you're living paycheck to paycheck.<p>Saying that though I think he's right in the sense that having experience of working in an environment like that <i>does</i> give you the appreciation for the relative comforts of a tech job.<p>I've worked retail jobs when younger, and sitting on your butt all day writing code is way easier...
It's interesting that he developed tendonitis.<p>I've read that the rate of injury at amazon jobs is incredibly high<i>, which is not good practice in my view.<p></i> Article says amazon rate of serious injury 80% higher than competitors <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57332390" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57332390</a>
The worst of poverty tourism is when it is done impersonally without recognition of the inescapable circumstances of others. Do see how real people live and work, connect with them to their faces. Recount your difficult escape from a low-income origin.<p>But: don’t think that you are one of them and able to advocate as a representative if you aren’t, a la Pulp’s Common People.<p>We should encourage resilience, but be sympathetic about its absence. Everyone <i>should</i> choose to learn to shake off a punch to the face, but that doesn’t negate the real trauma of someone getting assaulted who didn’t have that lesson.
I did the other way round. After 5 years in Tesco warehouse somewhere in the UK, I went back to Poland to learn web development. Picking jobs are cruel, I'd advise anyone against taking it and trying hardest they can to avoid it. It gives you problems with your back, your legs, gets you bored about life. You get back home physically tired and mentally numb each freaking day, that's because you wear your arse out there forced to ignore any safety rules just to get on time with all tasks and you still get some angry manager calling you every now and then because his managers always push him to achieve more 'picks/hour'.
If you see warehouse job ad - run.
BTW, a highly disturbed sleep like he is describing is a common sign of burnout/depression/anxiety disorder. Do not ignore it! There are drugs and therapy, it is worth it. It is double worth it if you have the money to stay unemployed or have other ways of getting some extended rest, at least 3 months. BTW, there is even some chemical signalling pathway explanation for that connection. Or maybe it is hypothesized? IDK, it's above my knowledge level. But the correlation surely is real and strong.
OP here. Decided to share this on HN because it seemed relevant given the earlier article on seeking structure. A lot of folks responded to my comment about Philip sharing that they too have experienced a yearning for physical labor.<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33070986" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33070986</a><p>Life takes all of us in different directions, I thought HN readers would find this path instructive.
> For me, a lot of my meaning comes from two things. One is doing something in the world that feels like it's actually making things a little better somehow. And so contributing to society in some meaningful way.<p>> But the other thing is socialization with my coworkers is a huge part of my daily satisfaction in a job. You might be free Monday through Friday but all of your friends are working when you want to grab coffee.<p>I can't relate to many of the author's life experiences, but this quote really hit home. I think we're all wired to want to (a) make something better and (b) share our life and experiences with other people.<p>How (a) and (b) manifest varies greatly depending on life background and opportunities, but I can say most of the mental healthy difficulties I've had previously in life can be related to those two points.
interesting that he's so programmed to work that just relaxing for a bit made him depressed. hard to see how working 11 hours a day is going to make it easier for him to still not have to put his kids on the calendar.<p>on a side note, i wonder if the actual therapy was just doing something physical. sitting down not moving for hours and hours is not what we were built to do. i always found working out, brazilian jiu jitsu, hiking, anything physical to be very therapeutic if i've been inside an office all day.
I think this is partly a story of retiring without having enough in your life to replace work. I understand how that's possible, as full days of work leave me not wanting to do much in the evenings (I don't have kids, so I can't imagine where parents find the energy) - that said, it's probably important for your mental health post-retirement to find things outside of work to engage in well before your retirement date comes.
I work in FAANG and enjoy Costco. Sometimes in the food court I day-dream of working there. You know what you are doing, you use your body, you go home and don't think about it.<p>I told my friend. He thought it sounded a lot like larping.
There were many times in my programming career when I wanted to take a mental break and just do some kind of menial job for a few months. There are many routine jobs that don't require much training so it should be easy to do one for 6 months. The problem is generally that most people's career paths do not allow for this kind of thing. It looks bad on your resume to have 'truck driver' or 'shelf stocker' in-between tech jobs.
Working in an Amazon warehouse can be refreshing and restorative when you can quit after 10 weeks and have millions of dollars in the bank. Not so much when you get tendonitis after 6 weeks but have to stare down another 30 years of this and still won’t have any savings.
I have a sense of guilt when I compare myself to my high school friends who have to work longer, work harder, and get paid significantly less. They are just as smart, they just made different choices. And this sense of guilt and of feeling like I don't deserve it just compounds the imposter syndrome to the point I can't even enjoy what I have because I think that at any moment I'll be "discovered" and lose everything. I think it stems from my inability to appreciate what I have because I have this instinctive belief that if I let myself, then something will happen for whatever reason.<p>Now that I wrote this I realize it has little to do with the original article (which I read, both parts actually), but hopefully someone has some good advice, so I don't have to resort to quitting and going to an Amazon FC to feel better about myself.
Similar story with me. Except I ended up in AWS!<p>Worked in different big tech for 7y, and took a sabbatical because I could, and so why not?<p>Well after a year of travelling and working on my own ideas and a bit of contract work, I entered a complete pit of depression. I mean contemplating ending it all to stop the pain. Instead big daddy Bezos was handing out tech jobs like candy so I took one begrudgingly just to have someone else to be accountable to, because I found it completely impossible to live with only my own expectations.<p>It helped. I'm halfway good again (or perhaps just a different, darker normal), with a different outlook on what and why I do things. But goodness.. I will never retire again. Not without kids to raise, or something/someone else to be accountable to.
“You will never understand
how it feels to live your life
with no meaning or control,
and with nowhere left to go.<p>You’re amazed that they exist, and they burn so bright
that you can only wonder why?”<p>—- Pulp, Common People<p>The Shatner cover is something special:
<a href="https://youtu.be/ainyK6fXku0" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/ainyK6fXku0</a>
This is just poverty tourism. And it reeks of a publicity stunt of a sort for his podcast.<p>People work these jobs for years. Taking one of these jobs for six weeks is interesting - but you’re effectively a tourist having a completely different experience than the person that actually needs that job to live.
I thought it was pretty interesting to read from the guy himself on his own site.<p>This one is quite well done: <a href="https://peaksalvation.com/socioeconomic-bends" rel="nofollow">https://peaksalvation.com/socioeconomic-bends</a>
Found the article very interesting and, loved reading. We find fulfillment in different things, and there is no one single best for many people.<p>PS: I found the snarky responses and accusations of "poverty tourism" to be amusing. It looks like there are a lot of bitter people who sees only their way and demonize anyone else who dont see it.<p>Live your life, if you find physical work a therapy, do you... if you find seating and staring at a screen your own therapy.. do you!<p>Hopefully, we stop trying to justify perfectly clear articles to people are only interested in making other as miserable as they are.
Having worked those kinds of hard jobs whenever I complain about my job in tech I remind myself of those jobs and find solace in my relatively cushy job.<p>You know what is funny, coding, security, linux, etc... were my escape from the misery of those jobs.<p>I am so grateful for my job, it is better to die or something than to go back to those jobs. Glad that guy found solace but man, the politics is always 10x worse than office jobs, everyone has little to lose so they act like it, you get over the physical stuff fast but it still takes a toll, very very little time off, always struggling with money but I never fell into the "credit" trap so I was ok, but anyone that did credit if any kind (car payment, credit cards, etc..) or had kids worked a second job. You could get fired for sitting down.<p>I had manual labor job once, my coworkers were illegal immigrants and felons on probation. I was "laid off" (so i can get unemployment -- but I've never been on it) because I didn't look busy enough, although I finished all the work fast, never sat down and kept cleaning all the already clean stuff to look busy.<p>Even the nicer blue collar jobs are ruined by tech. GPS and microphones everywhere so they can squeeze every last sweat out of you. But then when they burn you out and lose out on their training cost or can't replace you they wonder why.
The classic version: "Two Years Before the Mast", by Richard Henry Dana, a writer who spent two years on a sailing ship to improve his health.<p>Dana is also noted for predicting in 1834 that the San Francisco Bay would become economically important.
I'm surprised he didn't dedicate himself to volunteering, I assume he doesn't need the job because of money, and volunteering should provide a lot more connection to community and a feeling of "making a difference" that so many seek.<p>Alternatively a hobby farm or vineyard can give you plenty of opportunities to do manual labour and have varying amounts of responsibility; and I imagine it would be quite a bit more enjoyable than an Amazon warehouse.<p>To each his own I suppose. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It resonates with me working as a delivery driver [opinions are my own] (contracted, pretty much all Amazon drivers in the field) in SF that previously had a decades long office job. I was burnt out and needed an immediate change from spending years mostly inside.<p>From a physical and mental stand point, the work can be quite a lot. Amazon doesn't take it easy on you. However, after gaining some conditioning I enjoy being paid to spend time outside. It's confirmed that I need to take more serious look into fields that let me work outside.<p>To sustainably preform at my optimum, nutrition and recovery are essential. During "peak" (highest volume of pkgs moved) my watch will record anywhere from 10 - 14 mi a day of walking with over a +1,000 calories burned.<p>Navigating streets with tourist, delivering on hills with significant grades, abnormal addresses and entrances (it's never quite as straightforward as one might think), numerous not up to code unique hazards, and what can be daily route changes - [one day delivering to skyscrapers in the Financial, the next to apartments in the Tenderloin) makes for a stimulating week of work.<p>It's not for everyone but can be rewarding while allowing a more focused split between work/life rather than where you're never really "off" from work.
I'm perhaps repeating myself from the other thread but this post angered me more than I expected it to. Other commenters have picked up on it too, but many others seem not to see it. This sort of poverty tourism is actually really twisted and indicative of some very grim aspects of our world. I'm curious as to what the author thinks or whether they are aware of this.
Philip isn't the only one. I followed a very similar path; after a decades-long career in tech, I was completely burned out. It was caused by different issues than Philip, but not incomparable ones: the repetitive nature of the challenges, seeing the same mistakes made repeatedly, never really getting to be "off the clock," etc.<p>Though I've since gone back into the technology industry, I spent a couple of years happily doing what many in the tech industry might consider "grunt jobs-" physically demanding, low pay, often dirty.<p>The first thing that I realized is that there is something deeply satisfying about hard manual labor, and the absence of that satisfaction in much of the tech industry is probably the source of some of the industry's most insidious mental health challenges. Many tech workers try to fill in that gap with "extracurriculars" like the gym, running marathons, or weekend camping trips. While all of those things are good and healthy and have their place, I can promise you that they don't fill the same psychological space as a full day of hard manual labor for a paycheck. As such, I make it a point to regularly take my PTO now to spend a day doing labor-intensive side jobs. That might sound crazy, but I can promise that it does wonders for mental health.<p>The second thing that I've learned is that there's an entire industry built up around trying to ease office workers' mental health issues, and it is both highly profitable and arguably predatory. If one so much as whispers about ditching a gym membership in favor of actually getting paid to do landscaping, or of selling that expensive treadmill in favor of walking dogs for several hours on weekends, be prepared for a veritable army of people to tell you that you're crazy. Surely millions of people can't be wrong, the argument goes. I can promise that you don't need to put a tenth of your paycheck back out into your extracurriculars to get that accomplished, tired-but-rewarded feeling.
I can empathize to be honest. There's something awesome about doing physical work. You get to use your body to think and move, and feel concrete progress.<p>However, I think being a Tech CEO is at the opposite end of the spectrum from being an Amazon Warehouse Associate. Being somewhere in the middle seems very compelling.<p>In essence, Crawford talks about this feeling extensively in his book (Shop Class as Soulcraft). Here's the essay that started it all: <a href="https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/shop-class-as-soulcraft" rel="nofollow">https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/shop-class-as-so...</a><p>He used to be a manager at a political think tank but went back to the trades because he found the latter not only more satisfying, concrete, and tangible, but also more mentally taxing, creative, philosophical, etc.
Whoa that really sucks. I met Philip Su a really long time ago when he was at Facebook. I think he came to our office in London to give a talk. Sad to hear he's been through such a difficult time. Hope life continues to improve for him and maybe he makes his way back to tech at some point.
> <i>I think most people who dream of retirement think that it's going to be awesome. And it was—for about a month. ... But after several months of pursuing various hobbies as my whims and interests—all the things which people who aspire to retire young might look upon with envy—I felt unfulfilled.</i> I<p>My experience as well, though the awesome part lasted more like 3 months and decayed slowly till about month 6 when I started to feel listless and aimless. Soon after that I hit the realization (and this is the part that's most depressing, I think) that while I wasn't happy working I was also not happy not-working. Not just depressing, a little frightening.
Reading this and finding it amusing that Amazon, out of all places, is still operating the warehouse in a traditional way. Seems like a big win for the employees would be to have an Amazon Work app on their phone, which tracks their in/out time. Schedules could operate on rolling basis, so no one comes at exactly 6am, for example. You get 900 people funnel in from 5 to 8am, in 20 min increments. Everyone gets to park in peace, and no one is losing 20 minutes just waiting in line to leave the building. It's probably a more hectic scenario for the employer to operate.
Having something productive to do and a sense of purpose could definitely help in the short term.<p>However - he worked there for all of six weeks. I can see how it's helpful to have this option available for someone who needs income in the short term to make ends meet. It's the same with driving for Uber or Doordash, etc.<p>However, we are too dependent on Amazon as a society (USA). Partly this is because suburbanization and zoning requires driving out to the edge of town to shop at big box stores, and expensive urban real estate means smaller stores with limited variety of products.
If you are ever in the same situation: don't make yourself Bezos slave, instead get a damn hobby. And no, gaming does not count.<p>Things like woodworking and metalworking can give you a physical and also a mental excerise, and feels much more rewarding than playing he's or shopping. It can also be quite social as there are tons of people with similar hobbies, maker fares and meeting places.<p>And yes, if you like it but miss being able to support yourself financially you can probably turn it into a business
For the folks giving hot takes on this transcript of episode 1, I'd definitely recommend the full podcast (<a href="http://peaksalvation.com" rel="nofollow">http://peaksalvation.com</a>). I think Philip is genuinely motivated by the question of how someone with opportunities in the tech space can make the world better. (Hint - he's not a Mike Rowe alcolyte.)
I have seen multiple PhD students that when finished went to work on physical type of works. From fish gutting (If I used the right translation of the term) to forest works. Any of them I asked said something along the line of: they cannot take it anymore and it has been too intense to continue with anything that needs them to analyse and think.
There's something strangely satisfying in hard physical labor. When I do stuff at home, like renovations, installing stuff, gardening, or doing car stuff, even house cleaning, I get a strange kind of euphoria that I don't get even when doing stuff like working out in a gym or cycling, at least, not at the same degree.
Interesting story. I can easily see how the responsibilities of being in charge of a decent-sized company can wear you down..however I do not personally believe there would be so much fatigue though.<p>I am curious to hear stories from HN folks here who have been through similar trajectories
What this really shows is that it is a lot harder to do most anything other than being a CEO. Steve Jobs held CEO positions at Apple and Pixar simultaneously. Seriously doubt that either was a 20 hour a week job.
I could related to this person and article a lot. I've had similar thoughts, give up the tech job craziness and go drive Uber for a few months and not have to c check email and slack 24/7!
As someone who's worked almost the full gamut of work types, from warehouse to sales to manufacturing to software development, even service and call center work, I can say that there's something rewarding about physically demanding work, taxing though it may be, that you just don't get sitting at a desk. And there's something you get building an abstract machine with your mind at a keyboard that you can't get in a warehouse or a factory. These days I try to balance those things, I make sure I do things that are very tactile and physical and alsp sit at my workstation at least a few hours a week to make progress on my projects. I'd say having a bit of both feels pretty good.
I have had many moments in my life as a dev where I'm so stressed out and tired of it all, where it sounds like heaven to just go work on a farm, and plow some fields.
Was this during seasonal labor hiring? Otherwise, playing a simulator video game wouldn't cost someone a wage opportunity and potential union contract runaway.
jasonshen's blog is awesome! And regarging the case, that is basically what my father did. Left a corporate job to run his own small business 25 years ago and he has been much happier ever since.