…sort of makes you feel good when you get home. Wind bitten cheeks and cold feet being the only downside but got home feeling good rather than lethargic after the usual sitting in the site office for too long with the heater on.

The novelty wears off on day two 😉

Best job I ever had was straight out of college working in a factory brazing plates on clothes hanging arms.

Turn up, do hard physical work with occasional banter, go home, receive a packet full of cash at the end of the week.

I was on the ground back in may finishing our housing site for a few months which was great after a stint of 14 months running a big project. This one just doesn’t keep me busy enough so I eat shit, drink tea, moan about the cold etc. Amazing how you soon become far too accustomed to a nice warm office.

Best job I ever had was straight out of college working in a factory brazing plates on clothes hanging arms.

I bet you wouldn’t say that if you were still doing it.

Nah, once in a while it can be entertaining.. do it daily and you’ll soon get pissed off. Some folks are destined for outdoors work, some hate it.

Riding a bike in winter gives you all the same feelings you’ve experienced, and you also get to come home and feel great walking into a warm house.

Not my idea of fun….

In that case swap your job and do it full time..simple..

I predict you wont…

Why has only half my post gone up

I have done some occasional volunteering for the Forestry Commission over the last 18 months. A day clearing scrub or ditching gives a much better feeling of tiredness and satisfaction than a day in my usual office job.

If I had the skills and could find a chance to get paid to do it I would – their EO salaries are a couple of grand more than ours!

Ah, reminds me of the winter a few years back when I was made redundant – friend gave me some work on his farm, tractor driving, clearing wood, making poles.. outside in the freezing cold all day, twisting my neck reversing the tractor. Loved it. Got paid too 🙂
Got a job now. It’s shit.

Worked in offices, worked outdoors and now on tools in building. Hated office work,awful,awful,awful. Horses for courses.

In that case swap your job and do it full time..simple..

I predict you wont…

I do sometimes do it full time. I’ve been in the building game for 25 years 😉

Spent all week painting, filling and sanding decorating a house for my parents its not so bad, did mine a few weeks to

Just doing it to keep me busy until I find a job

I was a removal man for 2 years after Uni and apart from the majority of the people I worked with being bellends, I quite enjoyed the work. That feeling after a particularly difficult removal when I sank that first pint was quite enjoyable.

I’ve done jobs when you get home and your body is ruined by your mind is fresh and a nice shower and beer later your body is melting into the sofa and it’s a nice feeling.

I come home now and sometimes I’ve hardly moved, I took less than 2000 steps in a day the other week and my mind is ablaze, a mess of figures and names and I’m still on my phone looking at emails and stuff, it’s shit.

I do wonder a lot these days if I’ve followed the right path, I don’t fancy leaving my IT consultant job to go and be an unskilled labourer – but if I could upload “time served plumber” or the like into my head Matrix style I think I would.

Grass always seems greener though I expect, I don’t really like being cold ha ha.

Have to agree, it was wild and wooly out today and I worked so hard I had to stop for breather on the stairs after. No cold feet though:

I think the key here is most say i loved it when i DID that..or i did it for 18 months or have done on and off for years

Its when its constant from 16 thats it wears you down…at 46 now im desperate for a more indoor less physical job…but hey ho guess i messed up in my choices

Maybe its the 27 mile round trip commute by bike thats the problem…but im not giving that up….

I’ve done jobs when you get home and your body is ruined by your mind is fresh and a nice shower and beer later your body is melting into the sofa and it’s a nice feeling.

That’s the difference though isn’t it? Having something to show for your efforts.

I’d say breaking yourself out of an otherwise sedentary lifestyle brings its own benefits as well.

Flip side,

I’m usually outside land surveying, setting out, bashing pins or pegs in, walking usually 8-12 mile a day. Carrying surveying kit about etc

Currently in an senior engineer role do more office based, leaving my energy levels free to batter Zwift every few nights.

Plus I’m inside in winter. 😀

As perverse as it sounds, there is something in this. Maybe it has a similar effect on the mind as meditation – the mind’s chatter is quitened by the task at hand in the day, and by exhaustion at night.

Orwell mentioned something like feeling ‘bovine-like contentment’ or something whilst working as a kitchen porter in Down and Out in Paris and London.

Also, the nazi’s used to have ‘work sets you free’ above the gates to their work camps. Dunno if they were just being ironic? Or maybe alluding to the fact that hard work renders one docile and compliant?

I’ve been doing a hard physical outdoor job for 14 years and I’m in my mid forties. Had an office job before that. Best thing I ever did. Self employed, choose my hours, spend time with the kids.

Winter’s fine, wrap up warm and crack on to keep warm. The worst is the summer in the heat, try grafting for 8 hours in anything over about 26 degrees.

Worked on building sites for a few years before university and it left me fit and strong for life. But I think past 30 it would have started to wear me out.

Currently doing a stint as an earthworks examiner on the railways, so outside climbing up and down cuttings and getting attacked by brambles on a daily basis. The works great but I think it’s lowering my riding motivation especially if it’s been a cold rubbish day. Not a big fan of office work in general though so it’s a compromise.
Also if I want will be done with the contract around April and then free to ride all summer!

Jam factory when I was a youth at college.
25kg bags of sugar, 200lt barrels of friut all day long.
All fun and games until a bastard wasp gets up your overalls leg.

I spend some of my time wandering around scotland looking at railway bridges and the streams beneath them its alright. But its awoken me to the best jobever.

Walking down the line holding a spanner tightening nuts.

8miles a day with just your thoughts for company… Bangin’

Orwell mentioned something like feeling ‘bovine-like contentment’ or something whilst working as a kitchen porter

What he meant was he got free Bovril

Ive been office bound for 20 years. Before that I worked on a fruit farm, great in the summer, but standing in the mid winter frost/snow/rain everyday for months pruning a never ending line of trees is no fun.
Before that I worked for a tree nursery as a tree lifter. It involved trying to keep on your feet in knee deep mud and slop whilst wrapping root balls on trees. Not fun.

I do still crave the outdoors and manual/practical work, so have been considering going back to field engineering. Best of both worlds IMHO, gets you out and about, but when the work needs doing its indoors in the warm.

Drilling 700 holes with a hammer drill then bolting 350 helping hand brackets on with a torque wrench on four lifts of scaffolding does get a bit tedious after the third day.
Next week’s plan is to get the insulation to each floor then fix that to the building by drilling yet more holes.

Oh yes. manual labour is great .

Removals man here at 43 and yh hard work and tireing but satisfaction coming home seeing my partner and my two hounds. The settling in for evening. Plus pay is not bad each month.