Yup. I have little college, just a smidgen. Maybe I’m lucky I didn’t go. LOL! Never worked fast food but I’ve dug post holes by hand in New Mexico (where 3/4 of the sand goes right back in) $1.25/hr to working in a gypsum plant $3.15/hr to eventually finding a job that would last me 36+ years making at the end $100K+. Of course we worked for it. Normal work year is 2080 hrs. Most of us worked 2500 or more hours per year. Sometimes 12 hrs/7 days for months on end. Why? It was our job and we had a task to do. Geez, I don’t remember ever getting the CEO gig just for being white. Guess I need to sue. Pretty sick of these whiney little snots who have no clue.
I worked commercial construction while in college. I nailed plywood on a roof all day in 40 degrees and steady rain. On a 95 degree day I busted up concrete with a jackhammer that weighed almost as much as I did. I saw guys fall off scaffolds and cut fingers off, and was damn near killed three times one morning. I learned that work is hard, but I never once thought about quitting and it was motivation to study and improve my life.
How it related to college was my Political Science seminar on “Comparative Political Systems” that should have been called “Soviet Communism Here and Now.” The professor talked about “workers controlling the means of production.” I had just finished the summer working on a real jobsite, a place the professor had never been (it’s hot and dirty there, you know). I knew if you turned the means of production over to the workers at Rome Builders, three things were going to happen: The buiding wasn’t going to be built, the “workers committee” was going to wind up in the parking lot with a keg of beer and a bucket of chicken, and they were going to take “the means of production” (tools and building supplies) home with them.
Professor Hansen wound up being the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Now I know why our colleges are so screwed up.