I suspect that we could fill a new thread with stories of the jobs we held before flying airplanes. Some of them were probably worse than any pilot job in the world (except a WWII kamikaze). My entry would be the summer I earned money for school by unloading railroad boxcars at a battery factory. The worst cargo was a nasty black chemical in heavy bags. We wore double face masks and looked like raccoons by quitting time. :p

I shoveled horse poop to pay for my private.