By that logic, if you'd tried being an untouchable sewer cleaner in India, you'd have loved your job cleaning chemical reactors by comparison.
But somehow, you are allowed to imply that cleaning chemical reactors wasn't much fun, while at the same time disallowing other people from expressing negative feelings about their jobs.
But the logic is valid. He should have loved cleaning chemical reactors in comparison (and he never said he didn't). We should always be trying to improve our lives. But sometimes our current situations aren't ideal, and at those times, I think it is appropriate to mentally establish a context in which that situation is still pretty darn good. You might not find the extreme comparisons intellectually compelling, but someone who adopts this attitude will clearly be happier. So who is the fool?
X complains about their job. Y says "fuckers should try my previous job", which implies "X has no right to complain because they have it easier than I had".
By that logic, Y has no right to make this complaint if anyone who has worse job than Y exists. They do exist, therefore Y has no right to complain about X's complaining.
Y's position is inconsistent. It says "You have no right to complain because your job isn't hard enough, but I have a right to complain because my job is/was hard enough".
It establishes an arbitrary baseline of having-a-difficult-life and consequent implied manliness/human worth that Y is above, but X is below. It's a way to smugly look down on someone for not being as awesome as you are, while trying to project a humble "I did a shitty job" image.
Depends on the size. Small ones might be removed from their housings, and a worker basically crouches inside cleaning it manually with gloves + gasmask. The one advantage of work like that is seeing yourself accomplish something in a known unit of time. The disadvantage is that it is horrible work, compared to sitting and typing and having a vague sense of ennui.
About 16 years ago, as I was shoveling ice in the back of a freezer trailer, burying fish, cold, miserable, smelly, wet, freezing my ass off, I had a thought: Sell out? A nice office job? Sounds freakin great!
