My favorite job ever, as far as the job itself, was working peon-tier helping to run a campground for a Summer. Only non-tech job I've ever had, had worked for years in tech before and years more after. Location was even pretty awful by outdoorsy standards, somewhere with mountains or... anything, really, would have been better still.

Too bad it paid, you know, a tenth of what I make programming.

It was great. No screens, just a normal-ass cash register to work from time to time. No sitting unless I wanted to, no meetings, golf cart to drive around once or twice a day. Firewood to carry. People to talk to. Plenty of time to read or write and no-one remotely interesting in claiming the copyright anything I did then, let alone during time I was off the clock. Pretty much nothing about the job was evil, while so many tech jobs are at least a little. None of that general soul-grime of corporate life.

I'd do that for a whole career if it paid anywhere near what software dev does. I'm only in software because 100% of the things I actually want to do pay half as well, at best, and some of them require a lot more up-front spending and time for education. Programming's great when I need to do it for a personal project. As a career, it blows, compensation aside. It's not even high status, for the most part, despite the comp.