I have, yes. I've also framed homes, roofed homes, and water proofed basements. I spent some time landscaping. I've held a variety of manual labor jobs, from working fields to construction to warehouses and factory floors to the military. Today, I'm a team lead and senior software engineer.
I'd also rather be outside again all day, working with and alongside people, physically and towards goals we can visualize, doing tasks that we all understand well and can articulate in an accurate way, and cultivating a genuine sense of camaraderie. Not the sort of weird brogrammer nonsense that is frequently encountered in our industry and which is oftentimes confused with camaraderie.
I pull a lot of my previous lives experience in to my work today and I spend a lot of time working very closely with my colleagues, but it's not the same. I don't end a day with the same sense of purpose or belonging that I experienced with physically demanding jobs. I got close, once, but it was a shared experience between myself and one colleague, as opposed to a team, and it was because of circumstances that aren't exactly repeatable in a meaningful way.
edit/ Of course, the above is making some assumptions that probably don't hold. There is genuinely something that I miss from physically demanding work that can't be found or replicated with the work that I do today (or, perhaps it's just that I have failed to find or replicate it). But, I'm also dramatically better compensated and live a nearly fully autonomous life today, too. These are just the trade-offs that we make, I suppose.
Almost in the -exact- same boat, as if I could have written this comment myself. My favorite job, by far, was landscaping. Being outside all day, getting sun and exercise, and seeing your completed project were all very rewarding/valuable. I was in great shape, left work at work, and had no problem sleeping at night.
It just doesn't pay well. I find working at computers all day rather depressing, at times pointless, and I can watch my health slipping. I really wish there was some kind of middle ground.
>> I really wish there was some kind of middle ground.
I think there is a market for a large, physically demanding computer keyboard. The keyboard 'keys' would require pressure from a full hand to activate, and the return and backspace keys could have a different type of lever action (pull to the side maybe). The operator would have to stand, which seems like a trend these days, and the PRO-version could come with a large inverted water bottle. Not joking about the keyboard, only half-joking about the bottle.
The closest thing to a middle ground I can think of is FIRE-ing and going back to work as a landscaper, or a carpenter, or whatever. You can not "need" to work financially, but still have to/want to have a job. The key is it can be any low or even non-paying job that you want.
Some of the happiest people I've met are retires that work part time in jobs like you mentioned. They get to feel productive but not have the same level of pressure and hours that people that work full time and are living paycheck to paycheck have.
A stint of physical labor is certainly a valuable experience, I long for it too, but it DOES eventually break the body if it is done year after year for decades.
I suspect that years of meaningless work just shuffling money around for wealthy people and institutions has a similar effect on the psyche, even if it is obscenely compensated.
I've concluded when people say "break your body", they usually refer to the slowly accumulating string of little slip-ups. You turn the wrench too hard and bash your knuckle. You grab something that was still too hot. You drop something on your foot. You lift something the wrong way and pull something. No one slip-up is a real big deal, but you can't help but make a few, and they slowly add up.
Goddamn. Can we be coworkers? I've worked countless manual labor jobs and am now crammed in an office. If I have to be here, I'd at least like to have coworkers who have your notion of cohesion and vision.
I worked manual skilled labor for four years between college and graduate school. I enjoyed most aspects of it but there is a definite pay ceiling and a greater risk of injury.
I'd also rather be outside again all day, working with and alongside people, physically and towards goals we can visualize, doing tasks that we all understand well and can articulate in an accurate way, and cultivating a genuine sense of camaraderie. Not the sort of weird brogrammer nonsense that is frequently encountered in our industry and which is oftentimes confused with camaraderie.
I pull a lot of my previous lives experience in to my work today and I spend a lot of time working very closely with my colleagues, but it's not the same. I don't end a day with the same sense of purpose or belonging that I experienced with physically demanding jobs. I got close, once, but it was a shared experience between myself and one colleague, as opposed to a team, and it was because of circumstances that aren't exactly repeatable in a meaningful way.
edit/ Of course, the above is making some assumptions that probably don't hold. There is genuinely something that I miss from physically demanding work that can't be found or replicated with the work that I do today (or, perhaps it's just that I have failed to find or replicate it). But, I'm also dramatically better compensated and live a nearly fully autonomous life today, too. These are just the trade-offs that we make, I suppose.