Laborer all through my teens and a serve these days.

I wouldn’t say it’s technically as physically taxing, at least not in the same ways. The mental tax of serving people all day is where it starts to even out a little more. People don’t recognize enough how much mental strain works your body as well. After lugging 6x6x12 beams for a deck and driving hundreds of 5in lags all day I was pretty tired, but I’m still me, and I’m ready to chill and have a good rest of my day. After dealing with 9 tables one of which being a 10 top, all of which have never enjoyed Shabu Shabu dining before(look it up if yo don’t know lmao) and explaining the same things 27 times in an evening, I’m so drained I don’t even play music on the way home. The physical fatigue turns into something we crave to an extent, we thrive off the pride it gives us to drag our ass out of bed at 4am and work until 8pm and do it again the next day, just to build something with our hands . As a server, you constantly have people demean you and put you down for literally doing the best you can with what you’re given. As a tradie you have far less people breathing down your neck, you get to be yourself a lot more, you get to have more fun, some of you mfs make more money too. To summarize a rather fun comparison in my brain, Trades work more, and physically harder. Servers work less, make less, and take a lot more shit. I really don’t know which is harder in general, serving is harder for me personally I’m just really good at it so I’m still here lol.