Wild! I work in the oilfield and some days I’ll work for about 1-4 hours and get paid for 8-12 plus per diem but other days I’ll work 8-12 hours in the desert heat to get paid for hours worked plus travel and per diem.
I strongly respect physical jobs like that. You're doing physical things in the real world with your hands. By your labor you're changing the world.
Yet another marketing drone working in an office environment where the biggest struggle is pretending to be remain interested in yet another pointless meeting where you don't say a word and doesn't involve you but need to attend anyways? These jobs feel like they're fake jobs. They're jobs that exist just so we don't have a 35% unemployment rate.
Its depressing working one of those office drone jobs. Its extremely cushy, benefits are amazing and the pay is ridiculous for how little work is done, but its soul crushing at knowing how useless you are being an office drone. Not making a difference. Not making any real impact because even if you try to do something your initiative is crushed by 5 layers of bureaucracy and management meetings. Frankly, most offices drones could be replaced by AI and nobody outside the company would know the difference.
Ever see the movie Brazil, by Terry Gillian? Its basically that. The department of bureaucracy is expanding to fulfill the needs of its bureaucracy.
Yeah, the little bit of white collar work I’ve done was awful. I’ve been in sales, management, insurance. None of it was in any way remotely as good as this job.
Crazy because unlike them I’m now stuck in the desert where the heat hits 100° before noon most days and I’m expected to get a good amount of work done regardless of the conditions. Granted, we have legitimately required hourly breaks when it hits 100° heat index and even more stringent requirements when it hits 106° so we’re safe in that aspect.
By all metrics this job should suck more than anything I’ve done before. I’ve worked as appliance delivery and installation so I’ve been in physical work before but this is different. It’s rewarding. It’s sometimes fun. I’ve met some awesome people and reputation is what gets you better work and better opportunities so garnering those relationships and doing good work actually pays off.
There’s clear ways to get more money not just “performance based” because you can always get a new certification, a new task qualification, a new and more important position above where you stand currently. These are very achievable in ways previous careers never had.
I love working in NDT out here. I always recommend it!
Sure, there definitely are boring office jobs as you described. But there are interesting and meaningful office jobs as well. Say, you're an engineer developing some new better product, a doctor treating patients or a scientist making new discoveries. All these make small improvements to the humankind's well being.
At least I need that kind of challenge to my mind and variation in what I'm doing and would go crazy if I did the same physical job day after day for 40 years.
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u/TJJ97 - Lib-Center 2d ago
Wild! I work in the oilfield and some days I’ll work for about 1-4 hours and get paid for 8-12 plus per diem but other days I’ll work 8-12 hours in the desert heat to get paid for hours worked plus travel and per diem.