One of the scary realizations of adulthood was how little work most white collar workers do and consequently how much they get paid to contribute nothing. After earning a PhD and being a "professional" for a while, I developed a deep respect for blue collar workers.
Yes, I wish there was a way to make it a social norm of everyone going through some month long ringer in a variety of positions like military, restaurant staff, and body-aching manual labor.
Universal conscription? (Okay, that's usually more than a month and technically only military, but its pretty easy to ibcorporate food service and body-aching manual labor, along with other stuff, under the umbrella of military service.)