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Have you washed dishes for a living?

• anigbrowl 14y ago
  I have. I call it a shit job because it's very hard for not much pay. It's also repetitive and reactive, so once you've achieved competence, there isn't really anywhere you can go with it; it's up (to a better job in the kitchen) or out. I moved up to cooking, but I don't feel the same nostalgia as this writer for being a dishwasher. Of the various manual labor jobs I've done, I preferred construction work because it provides a sense of progress and offers more opportunities for skills development and variety as well as teamwork. YMMV.
  • eitally 14y ago
    I suspect that the percentage of knowledge workers in Europe & the US/CA who have held menial jobs prior to entering the professional workforce is significantly higher than the percentages in developing countries. I could be way wrong, but it seems there's far less social stigma attached to holding service jobs in countries where everyone knows there are attainable, relatively straightforward to achieve, better options, compared to countries where the middle class is still much smaller and a large percentage of service workers know going in they'll be holding those types of jobs for life.
    • amalag 14y ago
      Yes in Asian cultures there is much more of a stigma with manual labor. It is a huge difference with western countries where work is valued no matter what it is.
      • anigbrowl 14y ago
        That's a good point; I overlooked that context.