From Fallen London Wiki (Staging)
To be fair, it was swinging a shovel in particularly hostile environs. I'm sure the vampiric grass and frayed semiotics and whatnot were ghastly for relatively mundane humans. On the other hand, I don't recall those details coming up much; their complaints only ever seemed to be just "we aren't being paid enough, we want more money".
I wonder how the devils managed to get their line built? Better legal department, I suppose.