[codemac]

I think they aren't stating well what makes the work grueling. It's not about the weight of the items, it's about the systems amazon uses to grade/rate the workers.

I've worked plenty of menial jobs, and the ones that just killed me inside were the ones that had extremely strict rules that eliminated my agency as a human. Unloading bricks for landscaping work? Hard labor, but mentally fantastic and I was only judged on how hard the other workers thought I was working, which as a human is easy to pick up on socially. Working on a food assembly line where I was judged on my placement & speed of a repetitive physical action? Almost debilitating stress and exhaustion.

Combining menial work with piles of stress is what creates physically & psychologically draining work that a night of sleep wont recover you from.

[JBlue42]

I wish I could upvote this more as I think it's an important point. When evaluating quality of jobs (not matter blue collar or white), agency is one of the important points behind job satisfaction.