It's hard, spending the precious hours of your short life on things other than what you're really passionate about
Isn't this true for the vast majority? Most people take jobs not because they're passionate about them, but because they need money to pay bills and buy stuff - simple as that. Some earn more, some earn less, but at the end of the day almost everyone would like to do something else. Even in IT, where wages are high and work is comfortable, I doubt most are passionate about their work - it's a different thing hacking some fun app or game in your spare time and working on some monstrous enterprise software, where you're just a tiny cog doing what you're told to do.
I was actually going to reply to that point, as well. This guy, despite his somewhat unique circumstances (and superb writing) isn't really alone in that he has to do what he needs, however unfulfilling, to get by.
I think about the people who work in fast food chains. Their entire working lives circumscribed by a binder written by people so many levels above them that thinking about it risks vertigo.
Decrease labor costs.
Increase productivity per worker.
Decrease food prices / increase profit with savings.
*Footnote: Make working just attractive enough so that people will apply in sufficient numbers
I think about what kind of life that would be every time I see someone post-teen working in a BurgChickeBoxMcKingBell. Try going through one sometime out in the country, when you're far enough away from a city that there aren't any other jobs. See who's being employed there.
.... What a disgusting system we've created. Writer is right about the tech haves and the have-nots.
When I was a kid, I bought a box of thumb tacks at the dollar store. When I got home and was using them, I suddenly got very sad: I started thinking about the people who assembled the tacks and put them in the boxes. Being naïve at that age I assumed everything was done manually, and I just felt awful about people who spent all day doing this just to sell them at the dollar store - they must be paid pennies!
To me, the perversion is creating a system where it's cheaper for the thumb tack manufacturer to employ people in mindless, repetitive, soul-crushing work (no offense intended to the few people out there who love assembling thumb tacks) than to automate the task.
Minimum wage is afaict a "below this wage a person cannot support themselves" barrier.
But we really don't have a "below this level of boredom a human shouldn't be doing the job" metric. (And moreover, I'd cynically quip that it's probably in capital owners' interests to ensure that never happens, thus affording them a cheaper alternative to investing in automation -- even if the price is a substantial portion of a person's life)
I sometimes watch How Its Made (well, more so it is a show my father loves so it is what is playing when I'm visiting my parents). There is a lot of automation, but there is almost always someone doing some part of the job that looks really repetitive and boring. I get a bit saddened reflecting on what it is like doing something so repetitive for so much of one's life.
Isn't this true for the vast majority? Most people take jobs not because they're passionate about them, but because they need money to pay bills and buy stuff - simple as that. Some earn more, some earn less, but at the end of the day almost everyone would like to do something else. Even in IT, where wages are high and work is comfortable, I doubt most are passionate about their work - it's a different thing hacking some fun app or game in your spare time and working on some monstrous enterprise software, where you're just a tiny cog doing what you're told to do.