Not the case with some, for sure, but it’s definitely more than some people realize

I'd even say it's virtually everything. I can't think of anything personally. let me give some examples

Fast food worker? You start as a burger flipper or cashier and become interested in the management of the fast food place. You take on more responsibility just because you find it interesting - the logistics of making sure the basic ingredients are prepared and how many fries to have ready at specific times of the day, measuring how fast the average person makes a burger and seeing if you can optimize it, how to greet and talk to customers, how to resolve conflicts, how often do you need to clean, what is the best way of cleaning, etc.

This can even be a career. There are regional managers and consultants for these fast food chains that go around to audit and optimize different chains. See how we start with something basic that 99% of people treat as a dead end job but you can go deeper?

The same skills that help you manage a fast food place will inevitably transfer over to other management. You could be useful at a warehouse, factory, hospital, etc.

Let's say you dig holes for an underground construction company. You stick around long enough and they'll have you pull some coaxial or fiber through the pipe you're digging a hole for. After a while, you become good at it and that's your main job because it requires more skill than just digging holes. You start to understand how neighborhoods are wired, with the vaults spread every 150ft and how the hubs feed all of the houses in a neighborhood or businesses in a commercial area. you get assigned to a big project that requires splicing.

all of a sudden you're a fiber optic specialist and you have the skills to maintain large networks. you could be a repairman or an auditor or even a project coordinator for large projects

I'll give you an example that happened to me. When I was 19 and just got out of high school, I got a job at a warehouse. It was a cosmetic company that produced all sorts of different shampoos and conditioners and make ups and female hygiene cleansers, eyelash growth serums... all sorts of stuff.

I started off as general labor for the shipping department. I would sit around and wait for a big order to come in from a distributor and then go around the warehouse getting boxes and putting them on pallets. I would then wrap up the pallets and load them into a truck with a pallet jack.

Well, each pallet needed to have some paperwork done and then each overall order needed to have some paperwork done. this included the total weight of the pallet, the total units of product (different boxes have different qty of items. one box may have 24 shampoos but a box of eyelash serum may have 60), and then all of this needed to be put on an invoice and packing slip that gets taped to the pallet.

when I got there, I was trained that we would write this down onto a piece of paper with pen and then tape it onto the pallet. there were frequent errors (if the weight was wrong, we would get charged extra by the shipping companies or if we're shipping internationally it could get stuck in customs if you didn't have the correct paperwork). I was good with computers and knew how to use Excel. I was interested in how I could make the process more efficient (less work for me). I suggested a spreadsheet to my boss that had a table saved into a hidden sheet that had all the weights for each different box, as well as the total # of items per box. he said sure, why not. I weighed every single box and then also weighed an average of the pallets we had.

I created a spreadsheet template that would essentially fill everything in automatically, while also looking clean and professional - i put the company's logo in there. This would also pump out a packing slip and invoice automatically filled in from the data inputted.

my boss was elated. his department was more accurate and looked more professional, meanwhile we were doing less work. basically every day i walked around that warehouse i paid attention and looked to see what we could be doing better. how could we optimize?

very quickly they pulled me off of labor and I started working in the office. when I left that job, 4 years later, I was the manager of the inventory department - responsible for over $100 million worth of raw materials. i had 8 people under me. i was 23, didn't know wtf i was doing, but really i was just curious and interested in making things move more smoothly

Do you see what I mean? Anything is interesting if you're a curious enough person. There's stuff to learn everywhere. There are processes to optimize, there are intricacies and subtleties to everything.

Yes our interests are outside of work. I also don't ask where he vacations, what kind of bed he sleeps on, or where he fills up his car with gas, though I'm sure he spends some of his life doing those as well. His job is not his personality and neither is mine.