Four years as dishwasher at a local pizzeria taught me that I will never succeed as a short-order cook, delivery person, or server. I learned how to wash a large number of dishes effectively in a brief time. I also learned to have unrequited crushes on women totally out of my league (e.g. every waitress/counter girl in the restaurant), and how my best strategy for getting close to them was to present myself as totally pathetic. Over time I was able to perfect this particular skill and am now married to a woman totally out of my league.
Ten years as an IT guy taught me that writing email(and writing in general) is a wonderful way to escape reality into a kind of mental pseudo-reality free of all inconvenient physics and biology. Over time I was able to hone that skill and am now a successful nonprofit fundraiser.
In five years as a nonprofit fundraiser I've learned that dishwashers have an amazing impact on the world. Every night they are presented with a target number of dishes to wash and every night they meet that target before they can leave. No one writes a bullshit report about how the dishes would have been washed but the policy landscape shifted and here are some lessons learned. There are no pressures to invent a new washing technique, and no middle managers who exist solely to watch the dishes get washed or coach the dishwashers.
I have identified my path to self actualization. Or, as the poet wrote: The search is over...you were with me all the while.
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