To spend 10½ hours a day picking items off the shelves...
So the journo is happy at the 12 hours a security guard does keeping his office safe?
Or how about the person packing the same item into a box, day after day?
or they postman that delivers the same little packages, often in lousy conditions, day in day out?
The person that put the manual in the glovebox of a new car, day in, day out?
Some jobs are shit, but they do have a choice, they can leave and do some other shitty (and often much worse jobs), or have no money. Or they can go to night school, learn a trade and move up the world in the job stakes. Plenty of choices, some shit, some good, but just because some writer thinks anything more demanding than lifting a latte in Starbucks is to demanding (another shitty job), maybe they should the real world.
BTW speaking from experience, I used to do 12 hours in a label making plant, often getting covered head to toe in glue and paper. But I retrained in my own time, worked hard and got the fuck out of there, incidentally for a lower paid job, but which I knew had better prospects.