GPFontaine wrote:

Tomdincan wrote: A food service job should be mandatory for everybody at some point in their young lives. Who cares if it is food service or anything else? Quite honestly, there are many young people I don't want coming anywhere near my food. I do think that getting a job while young is important, but I don't see the benefit of it being in the food service industry.

People who have never done it don't get it, but all people who have do get it. Having to memorize all of your tables, meanwhile performing delicate and difficult physical labor as a server, or the physical and mental strain under strict timelines as a cook, or even being able to take shit while working in a dirty environment as a dishwasher builds so much more character than folding clothes in a Bon Ton or something.

I never get offended on my own behalf until people say things like GP just said, and I agree with Josh. A hard job is useful for many things:

-It builds resistance. I can't read "internet humor" sites anymore because it's mostly listening to office/retail people whine that they have to work 2 hours over-time and that they're all smarter than their stupid boss. I'm not saying I'm better because of my job, but I've learned that whining about my job just makes things more miserable on a 20-hour shift, and being obstinately lazy and blaming my problems on everyone else is a character flaw that will keep me from moving up in life.

-It's better for that "harder not smarter" thing GP mentioned, but in a different way. I trained some macho guy with no real hard job experience one night. He talked about how cooking is for pussy girls and wanted an easier job than his car sales one. He got in the weeds on his second or third shift, and eventually had to get thrown off the line. I found him crying and covered in sweat in the back office. I heard he took back his really hard office job the next day. Meanwhile, my ex whom I'd met at the job was 20 years-old and had been working in kitchens since she was 14. She could juggle a thousand things in her brain and hands without missing a beat. When you need to get a million things done right the hell now while conserving energy, you learn how to deal with actual difficult problems, not just ignore or avoid them.

-You take criticism better. If that dish you sent out is bad, or you poorly cut a lawn, or you loaded a truck wrong so that everything inside collapsed, you can't fold your arms and say you won't do it again, or the manager will fire you on the spot. You learn what you did wrong, admit your mistake, and do it right.

-You actually learn things and deal with people. I worked as a clerk in a law office for a bit, and everything was like a game. When you have about three hours of actual work in an 8 hour day, you kind of lose appreciation on how things get done. If I had a question there, people would scoff and walk away because they wanted to be the smartest guy there. If you pull that shit in labor jobs, you'll get reprimanded because there's a loose end walking around making everyone's job harder because you didn't answer a simple question like an adult.

1) You're assuming everyone has the choice and ability to do this kind of work. There are huge swaths of this country without service/retail jobs like that.

2)I talked about them mostly as character-building for college grads. I'm friends with a guy who manages a firm that does IT stuff for the military, and he almost doesn't accept college grads who haven't had some kind of difficult job, because they all feel entitled that college was their way of earning their jobs and salaries.

3)Some people really find pride in producing something of worth in this country, and we shit on them by pointing and saying "You don't actually want to work like these morons, do you?" This country got fucked over so hard because everybody was afraid of the stigma of labor jobs. Now, we don't manufacture or export anything, and are less successful economically because people don't want to take "demeaning, stupid jobs."