[listless]

At the risk of sounding like a terrible person, I'd like to be honest for a second about why I went to college, which is to avoid this exactly reality that you just laid out.

I enlisted in the military after finding college to be too boring for my taste. 3 months later I found myself doing the hardest manual labor of my life on a riverboat for the Coast Guard. The pay was not great and nobody cared if you didn't feel like working or were exhausted. The system (as is the military) is not merit based and the guys at the top were pretty awful to the ones at the bottom. By contrast, the officers in the coast guard had nice offices, nice crisp uniforms, nice private rooms, nice private dining quarters, ect. And the difference between those two (enlisted and officer) is a college degree.

What I learned is that I did not want to be an enlisted man. It's a lot of very hard work for little pay and even the highest enlisted man is still saluting the lowest officer.

This was enough to galvanize me to go to college and finish as quickly as I could.

Blue collar jobs are not for everyone. They were not for me. I realize the Coast Guard is not a perfect microcosm of the real world, but in a lot of ways it is. Now that I have the white collar job, I still chuckle at "mental health days" and people complaining about being "burnt out". I chuckle because I remember those days on the river, baking in the hot sun after working for 36 hours straight and how much we all would have laughed until we cried if those words had come out of someone's mouth.

[confidantlake]

You don't sound at all like a terrible person, in fact I think this is a fairly common experience. My grandpa told me a very similar story about freezing his ass off in a far north oil town and seeing how the foremen lived compared to him. That spurred him to go to college and live a much nicer life.

I went through a smaller version of that myself, working at a shitty job in the lifeguard in the hot sun as a teen. Saw people who were 30 or 40 still working there. I knew I did not want it to be me. Got a degree, ended up at an underpaid part time office job, starting at 6 am every morning. But a few guys there had full time jobs that paid well and started at 9. Those were the programmers. Decided that was the road to go, went back to school and joined the good life.

[gibspaulding]

Not too different a story here. I worked for a roofing company through college. It was a good job in many ways. It was a union shop so benefits/safety/etc were great, and journeyman scale was actually more than I make now. It would have been a great gig through my twenties, but I had coworkers tell me over and over to stay in school and that I didn't want to end up like them.

I got a degree in Math and a minor in CS thanks to income based scholarships, but ended up bouncing around for a while in various IT and computer adjacent jobs not making a ton of money, and not loving being cooped up inside, so I sometimes wonder if I'd have been better off just accepting a apprenticeship, but I've been working towards "the good life" as you say, so in the long run I think college will have been the right choice.

[alexjplant]

I was dropping fry baskets and doing IT work for $5 an hour at a restaurant when I was 12 years old. Unfortunately I wasn't cognizant enough at that age to determine my career trajectory on the basis of which type of work I enjoyed... it was more that I was a lot better at configuring networking on the computer in the back than I was at making Reubens as a line cook.

[phist_mcgee]

Both can still be valid.

Mental health days are good, and burn out is a real phenomenon.

It's a shame that blue collar workers don't have access to these facilities, and yes office workers are by and large 'softer' than blue collar workers. But we should fight corporations and organisations to provide those facilities for everyone, and not pick sides in a working class debate (not that you did that).

All paid workers real enemy is the capital class, and we should never forget that.

[pinkmuffinere]

>All paid workers real enemy is the capital class, and we should never forget that.

I totally agree with you up to this point, so just want to explain why i disagree with this particular point.

I want better treatment for all humans, and I agree that some of the "capital class" is actively fighting this, but some is actively helping it as well. For example, I think Bill Gates, the Collison Brothers, and some of the Kennedy's have been a large net positive on humankind. Perhaps those examples aren't perfect, but at the very least we can imagine somebody belonging to the "capital class" that also helps improve conditions for everyone. I think anyone that's trying to improve the human condition is a friend.

[pnt12]

Well one can argue those are cherry picked examples.

But even if they aren't, it's still a problem that those people decide who they contribute to, instead of the billion dollar businesses paying their fair share to the democratic state, who then has accountability to invest in their stakeholders - the citizens.

[phist_mcgee]

The people can do good things, but in an exploitative manner?. Earning billions off the labor of others and then giving back is still not moral in my eyes. And I think it's an exception to the rule any way that any in the capital class produce a net benefit to society.

[pinkmuffinere]

I don't think profit necessarily implies exploitation. People could make billions while also helping the labor class, and then give back to society. Think of things that improve safety, efficiency, or extend human life -- fire extinguishers, farm implements, some medicines, etc. I'm sure people make money off of these, but I'm still thankful to them. You may be right that most of the capital class is not a net benefit. Nonetheless, I think this kind of broad generalization just distracts us from the real goal of improving human lives.

[ckosidows]

I rather disagree and think this discourse is both beneficial and necessary. This comment really feels dubious and is the exact definition of the Noble Lie.

[mantas]

Elite is the same in any system. Be it feudal of the old or ruling class in socialismus-comunismus implementations. That’s just a part of any group of animals.

[mym1990]

Ah yes, going into work every day sneering at your employer as they are your true mortal enemy, sounds like a perfect way to live.

I am assuming that since you think this, you don't have a job?

[phist_mcgee]

You got me!

I live in a yurt in mongolia.

[web3-is-a-scam]

Ah yes, the capital class that enables me to have a cushy office job in the first place. So evil. /s

[ip26]

You’re certainly right that people casually complain of burnout long before it has reached medical significance, but it isn’t just some imaginary condition. Burnout seems like the brain equivalent of overexertion injuries. In full form it seems rather similar to battle fatigue.

[listless]

Much of how humans handle their own suffering is determined by their world view. Knowledge workers tend to have a view that we should never be uncomfortable in our jobs. Ever. For a lot of blue collar workers, being uncomfortable is just part of the job. Watch one episode of "Deadliest Catch" to see this in action. A lot of blue collar work is "comfortable being uncomfortable".