I've done manual labor. Mowed lawns for a guy who had his own company, he drove us around in the truck, we'd hit the grass with his mowers.

Worked fast food, retail. Been a dishwasher, bus boy....

I think there is something abut the manual labor that gives you a daily sense of accomplishment. The lawn work for sure. Arriving at a tatty yard, leaving it looking like a golf course.... That sort of day-to-day sense of achievement is much more rare in software development.

To be sure I ultimately chased the higher-paying software field. But when I would see the "grounds keepers" at the Apple campus, I was often a little envious....