Work, the marvelous and mundane

A couple of posts ago, I mentioned a story character by the name of Odd Thomas, who works as a fry cook in a diner. Previous to that, I had talked about the way we choose our professions and train our kids for them.
I link these two thoughts in this manner. When is a job just what we do to make money, and when is it something more?
I studied law, with the intention of becoming a practicing lawyer. Things didn't turn out that way, but that isn't the point. Along the way, I've held a lot of what people might call menial jobs. I have cooked in a fast food joint, worked in a convenience store and been general kitchen help in a family restaurant.
I have really enjoyed some of these jobs. They were more than that to me. Is it odd to take pride in the best made onion rings in a city? I put my heart and soul into what I was doing at the time. If you really want to, you can make your workplace your own. No matter what the sign on the door says, it's your place, and you keep it as well or as poorly as you want.
Odd Thomas took pride in being the best fry cook he could be. His pancakes had to be the fluffiest, his burgers the juiciest. When I worked at the convenience store, I wanted the shelves to be spotless. I wanted the floors clean enough you could eat off of them. If you can't take pride in a simple place of employment, what is the point of wanting any other profession?
What it comes down to, once again, is the way society looks at the job that we hold. The girl behind the counter at McDonald's is almost invisible. The stock broker in the power suit gets people to turn heads. We have to fancy up titles to make ourselves feel important. You don't want to be introduced as a cook, you want to hear, "My friend is a marvelous chef!" In the corporate world, they make up titles to give people in place of real advancement.
Somewhere, in the bowels of every office complex, is a dark little room with a pasty-faced guy whose job is to make up titles for people who won't be getting raises. None of these jobs involve responsibility or privileges, just longer name plaques outside the cubicle.
Okay, I just channeled "Dilbert" there for a moment.
The point is that we should decide what we want to do based on what we find enjoyable. Society should learn to appreciate all of the jobs that get done, and done well. If you get the Discovery Channel, be sure to watch "Dirty Jobs" once in a while. You never see anyone complaining about how disgusting their line of work is. They are just seeing a need out there, and making it pay for them. Hell, some of them ENJOY the dirty work!
I think a lot of talent is going to waste in colleges and universities because parents have said, "No child of mine is going to stock grocery shelves for a living!" A little direction in life is a good thing, but never stifle what your child LOVES for what is prestigious by society's standards.
To this day, I wonder where I would have ended up if I hadn't gone to university to study. Sure, I may have chosen something I would have to abandon when I became ill, but the time I was there... I could have had so much fun!