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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think that desk jobs can be as taxing as manual ones?

62 replies

KenAdams · 10/04/2014 12:47

DH and I have both been to college/uni (not trying to sound like a dick just to illustrate my point) and had desk jobs so we've been used to desk based work for a while now.

SIL and her DP have manual jobs. She says that we don't do proper work and just look at computer all day so it's easy. They have both worked since 18 and not been to uni, so it may be just that they haven't done any desk based stuff for a while and forgotten what it's like, but AIBU to think that desk jobs are just as difficult as manual jobs, albeit in a different way?

OP posts:

uselessidiot · 10/04/2014 14:49

I think they are a different sort of tiring. They are both taxing and proper jobs.

goodasitgets · 10/04/2014 14:52

Desk job but it's mentally and emotionally exhausting

coolcookie · 10/04/2014 15:03

I have done both. Both draining in different way. Yanbu

Linguini · 10/04/2014 15:18

Desk jobs are generally paid a lot better than manual jobs... So they 'must' be harder!

With desk/office jobs you have to deal with really weird unspoken rules that I've never quite gotten to grips with. And unexpected back-stabbing and power games...

Someone posted how jobs involving the general public are the hardest and oh my goodness I couldn't agree more. I did a in-bound customer service call center job once, my job was literally to be shouted at, abused, called names, it was paid peanuts and it made me hate people!

I think manual labor can be easier (which I have done) because at the end of the day, you're done and your day is over. You don't take the work problems home with you.

agedknees · 10/04/2014 18:20

As you become older a physical job becomes harder. As a nurse I can be on my feet from 8am until 7pm with a 10 minute sit down for lunch. I get home and my knees/legs hurt so much I am unable to sleep.

To be honest both office/manual jobs are probably hard in different ways. Especially as the people in work seem to be worked to death these days.

FourEyesGood · 10/04/2014 18:24

As others have said, it's not a competition! I bet it'd really piss her off if you said, "Yes, your job must be so much more tiring than mine. Aren't I lucky?"

I bet she'd know you were taking the piss a bit, too. Win-win.

LaurieFairyCake · 10/04/2014 18:30

I usually find physical work easier - I painted a room for about 8 hours the other day. Not as tiring as my normal job sitting in a chair.

tallulahturtle · 11/04/2014 08:04

Im in a physical job, lifting wine all day everyday . It is more tiring than a desk job and we do take our work home with us - i currently have a neck in spasm and one of my team has a slipped disc.
I did do some desk jobs on much much better money and had so much energy after work but was depressed at being essentially sat in the same chair for 8 hours a day so I went back to the wonderful world of wine retail. We work more hours (50 a week, 60 in december) but i find the day goes quicker than it did sat at a desk and you don't need to worry about the gym , all the teams bodies are beach ready all year round. Our only concern is injury. Eventually I will find something else better paid (and isn't such a disappointment for them when the uni do their annual ring around to see what illustrious "career" their ex students are in) (i have a degree ffs, but based on how depressed i was confined to an office , i need to find a job that is away from desks). Occasionally i think about how much more i was earning in an office and think should i have left but i was so depressed. Money is not everything if you are not happy, now I'm happy :)

frankblackswife · 11/04/2014 08:11

I have worked manual jobs in the past when I was in Uni -waitress, packer etc but nothing is as exhausting as the desk job I do now - most weeks I log 70+ hours (salaried so no overtime) and it's intense from the minute I log on till I log off. I got a UTI a couple of weeks ago because I wasn't going to the loo during the day because I just didn't have time. I have just finished a project and was hoping for a couple of weeks of downtime (still working but less intense - i.e. maybe only 45 hours a week) but am going :(

frankblackswife · 11/04/2014 08:12

sorry that should have said but am going straight into a new piece of work that needs fixing :(

Financeprincess · 11/04/2014 15:28

I've never done a physical job, but despite that I know that it would be disingenuous to suggest that a desk-based role could ever be as exhausting as e.g. being a nurse.

Having spent some time in the public sector, I've worked with a great many desk-based whingers, most of whom think that they work harder than anybody else, even as they are closing down their computers at 4 pm sharp. To those people, my response to "I'm so tired/stressed" is, "try working down a mine".

Eastpoint · 11/04/2014 15:35

I think it depends on your personality. I don't find working with the public tiring, I can spend a day moving goods around and interacting with the public & be fine at the end of the day, similarly working with horses & children. Last year I did a photoshop course which was only 5 hours a day and I found that far more tiring. Hopefully people choose careers which suit their own personalities & play to their strengths.

struggling100 · 11/04/2014 15:41

I think it's a different kind of tiredness, if that makes sense. I don't think one is worse than the other, but I think they aren't the same.

Working in an office can be dreadfully stressful and full of conflict - and you leave after long hours feeling gritty, emotionally drained, and embattled. I think it can really take its toll on your mental health after a while.

Manual work, though, is physically draining. If you look at the number of builders who need hip/knee/other joint operations or even replacements at a young age, it is telling. Try doing 8 hours of heavy manual digging in your garden, or 8 hours of plastering - and then see how much you hurt the next day and how quickly you fall asleep in front of the telly!

DrCoconut · 11/04/2014 16:58

Working in education is very draining. When you are in front of the class you have to be on the ball all the time and focused. I'm not saying its the only job that requires focus but it is not the easy "part time" "little job" that some people seem to think I have, especially when all the planning, paperwork, meetings, CPD etc are factored in. One day I have 6 hours of lectures and labs, I don't get a demonstrator and I'm knackered by home time. Definitely all jobs take it out of you, just in different ways.

MooncupMadness · 11/04/2014 19:07

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Pollaidh · 12/04/2014 20:58

My desk job is exhausting - it includes computer work yes which can require a huge amount of concentration and brain power (writing reports for publication, organising events etc), but 'desk job' also includes public speaking, chairing stressful meetings, exhaustion of trying to speak/understand foreign languages (often on a terrible international line). Also lots of travel, occasionally even 3+ countries a week...

I have also done physical jobs. Also exhausting - out in desert heat, in freezing rain, soaked to the skin or dehydrated. Lovely when the weather is just right, if still hard work physically (and intellectually), absolutely terrible when the conditions are wrong.

However both have been interesting, if exhausting. A boring job where I wasn't learning anything - now that would kill me.

TheCrackFox · 12/04/2014 21:01

I've done both and there is not enough money in the world to prize me from my desk job. I actually have some energy left after work to do fun things.

Yabu

Pollaidh · 12/04/2014 21:11

I'd say the difference is that after physical work (as described in post above) sleeping is not an issue. After a stressful day of 'desk' work I can't sleep.

MrsKoala · 12/04/2014 21:15

I agree with chips, I have done a variety of manual and office jobs and one of the 2 which was most draining was the call centre job. Having timed toilet breaks and no gaps between calls, people shouting and swearing etc was just knackering. The other was in a school working with children with SNs, hour after hour with no let up. By 3.30 I was emotionally and physically spent. I used to go home and cry from exhaustion and sleep like the dead.

frogslegs35 · 12/04/2014 21:25

I've done lots of both kinds of jobs and I find the desk job more mentally and emotionally draining. Depending on which dept I'm in (usually the collections team/struggles with bills and debts area's or complaints)
I'd often worry about people's problems and how best to help them long after my shift had ended.
The manual work I've done could be physically draining but I could deal with that better by going home, cup of tea with my feet up, nice soak in the bath, good nights sleep etc..

DisgraceToTheYChromosome · 12/04/2014 23:32

I've worked in an office, and I found it pretty shattering. This was mostly down to refraining from killing my colleagues.

HGV driving can be tiring what with the 14 hour days, but my current placement is around 7-8 hours and I'm fresh enough to knock out a 15 mile extended ride home or a gym session. This is on top of unloading 4 tonnes by hand at work.

The worst one I did was IKEA deliveries. I lost 4 inches off my waist in a month and I got so big all my shirts ripped. I felt like a moose, a very knackered moose.

DisgraceToTheYChromosome · 12/04/2014 23:33

I've worked in an office, and I found it pretty shattering. This was mostly down to refraining from killing my colleagues.

The worst one I did was IKEA deliveries. I lost 4 inches off my waist in a month and I got so big all my shirts ripped. I felt like a moose, a very knackered moose.

NaughtySpottyBengalCat · 13/04/2014 03:16

It very much depends if you like your job of not. If you hate it, you will be exhausted no matter what you do. I have a desk job that has left me clinically depressed. I sometimes lie down and sleep in the disabled toilet and often use my lunchtime to sleep. After working a 10 hour day I'm in bed by 9 or maybe 10. I sleep 10-12 hours a day, but most of that is to blot out reality. On the other hand, I have had manual jobs (with horses) and was never as tired as I am with a desk job - I enjoyed it though, even though it could be emotionally draining. However it did not pay enough to be feasible to live on as a single person. My ideal is to work with animals on a wage that I can get by on without having to live in a flatshare. Not sure I will ever get there but it's all that keeps me going.

BrianTheMole · 13/04/2014 03:53

Both exhausting op. Yanbu

daisychain01 · 13/04/2014 04:08

The most tiring thing is trying to reason with someone who turns working into some competition. Especially when you're comparing apples to oranges.

Saying manual work is more tiring than a desk job and "what do you do starring at a computer screen all day?" are what the term "jog on" was invented for!

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