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by Hasu 2055 days ago
> So he worked at McDonalds for 3 years in high school, what does that have to do with anything.

I'm confused, you started by agreeing that highlighting the McDonald's experience is a good thing, then asked 'what does that have to do with anything'. I don't know what position you hold, here.

As for me, I never worked at McDonald's or any other fast food, but I did spend some time working at a local pizza joint, where I started as a busboy, and eventually assumed cook and delivery driver duties. I'd already taken programming classes and knew Java and Python, but had never considered software as a professional option. My time in the service industry was still super valuable to me as a software professional - I learned about time management, prioritization (working as a busboy and dishwasher who also makes some minor food items is an implementation of a priority queue where the priority values can change very quickly), and how to identify repeatable business processes. These are all highly valuable skills for someone who writes code, and pretty much any service industry job, taken seriously, requires understanding them. They apply equally in SaaS.

So my answer to your (possibly rhetorical?) question is: working at McDonald's for 3 years in high school has quite a lot to do with the rest of the career, as valuable fundamental business skills are there to be learned even in the lowest wage jobs.