I've actually had the opposite experience working as summer labor for facilities maintenance.
It was extremely 9-to-5; well, technically, 7-to-3:30. Most people worked most of the time, because it was hourly, but if you needed to arrange to not, it wasn't a big deal, because you were hourly, and moreover, not customer-focused. If (nearly) everyone took the same day off, you just needed a skeleton crew for emergencies and the maintenance just got done a day later.
I don't think the distinction is really "tech versus non-tech" or even "white-color versus blue". I think the real distinction is jobs that have deadlines for one-off projects versus jobs that ... don't, where you just do the same tasks over and over because they keep needing to be done. Building maintenance is a lot like building construction, it uses the same skills to do the same things, but one uses a small number of people to do the work over fifty years that the other does with a large number in one.
The two types of work require different mindsets and different lifestyles. When you have a deadline, one big thing to accomplish before you rest, it makes sense to work long hours and monomaniacally to meet those deadlines. When you are in it for the long haul, you need to pace yourself.
It was extremely 9-to-5; well, technically, 7-to-3:30. Most people worked most of the time, because it was hourly, but if you needed to arrange to not, it wasn't a big deal, because you were hourly, and moreover, not customer-focused. If (nearly) everyone took the same day off, you just needed a skeleton crew for emergencies and the maintenance just got done a day later.
I don't think the distinction is really "tech versus non-tech" or even "white-color versus blue". I think the real distinction is jobs that have deadlines for one-off projects versus jobs that ... don't, where you just do the same tasks over and over because they keep needing to be done. Building maintenance is a lot like building construction, it uses the same skills to do the same things, but one uses a small number of people to do the work over fifty years that the other does with a large number in one.
The two types of work require different mindsets and different lifestyles. When you have a deadline, one big thing to accomplish before you rest, it makes sense to work long hours and monomaniacally to meet those deadlines. When you are in it for the long haul, you need to pace yourself.