alt Hacker News>It's always seemed silly to me when you zoom out of this picture and see it like this; the more your job pays the less it exposes you to physical harm.
I've worked physical labor too, though never in a factory. More like lugging baggage and cleaning toilets. Still, people got hurt doing it, especially over a lifetime of labor.
It comes down to rarity of skill. Not to be to crass about it, but when your primary value is that you're willing to put yourself in physical harm, the market for your offering has a lot more supply than demand.
For example, I spend a lot of time in hotels when I was young. Just finding people who were reliable and trustworthy and legal enough to drive the airport van without wrecking it were like 1 in 10 of the people who were potentially eligible to do it. If you were able to do rudimentary math and not steal from the till, you were one of the "lucky" few who got to work at the front desk. If you showed up regularly, well, the world was your oyster.
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Being the one driving the important people, I can tell you from my experience, is one of the most eye opening of my eclectic history up til now, in that context. After doing it for 6 years, I can't imagine really voluntarily accepting that large pill to swallow of "lacking the skill."
Good points, I figure it's interesting from both sides hearing the others' perspective.
> Still, people got hurt doing it, especially over a lifetime of labor.
The number of programmers I know with back issues like herniated discs is larger than those without. It's a different risk, no doubt, but it's real nevertheless.