[nickff]

This comment reflects a pretentious disdain that is exactly what I dislike. I have worked menial and frustrating jobs, and you learn a lot by working through tough situations. I’ve also absorbed similar lessons from sailing offshore in difficult conditions.

[giantDinosaur]

Sailing offshore in difficult conditions sounds much more interesting and skillful than any amount of entry-level hospitality. Anyway, of course I have no 'disdain' for working menial jobs - I have worked in them too, I just don't really view them as anything particularly positive, and certainly for me they were formative only insofar as they provided major motivations for completing my degree so I could escape them.

[nickff]

I think you probably learned a lot more from those menial jobs than you realize. People who never did that kind of job often lack empathy for blue-collar workers; I used to work with one engineer who didn’t care whether production staff got laid off because our project was late (whereas others believed we had a duty to our co-workers). You also either demonstrated or developed an ability to cope with working on tasks that were tough, uninteresting and monotonous; many white-collar workers expect work to always be fun, with constant positive reinforcement, variety, and no failure (like school).

You learn the second lesson from sailing, but not the first.