Ryan kinda took me back...

I didn't get a chance to watch the full speech of Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan last night (errands come first), but a portion I DID watch really took me back in time.
Ryan was relating how his job at McDonald's gave him the chance to plan for his future; he recalled flipping burgers and standing in front of the Hobart dish washing machine.  He used his time constructively to realize that he was better than that job, and that there were bigger things in life than what he was doing at that moment.
It was at that moment that deja vu struck me right between the eyes!
Yes, Ryan and I had something in common: we both flipped burgers and stood in front of the Hobart dish washing machine!
Our circumstances were identical, (I actually worked in a 24-hour truck stop) but our thought processes, while sharing some commonality, were different.  Or, maybe not so much.  You decide.
Flipping and standing as we were, Ryan thought "this is just a step in life; I can make things change; there are better things out there".  And, that's just what he did.  He looked for, and found, something more.
In my own experience, my motivation was the realization that I had found something that I DIDN'T WANT TO DO FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE!  It was truly motivating to me: the shift started at 6AM, I had to clean up any messes left by the teenagers who had worked the night shift, and lifting damned near killed me.  The pay was too low, the work too hard, and respect was non-existant.  Some of the folks with whom I worked had done the restaurant number all their lives.  Two of the cooks, husband and wife, had immigrated (legally) from Europe after WWII and had been doing the same thing ever since.  This was in the early 1970's.  For them nothing had changed much; looking back, they seemed to enjoy what they were doing, though.  Different strokes, I guess.
It also struck me as sad (I could have been wrong), that one of the other shift dish washers was probably in his 70's and had no future other that what we were both seeing.
Nonetheless, that job, while enjoyable to some degree, made me realize that some jobs prepare your life for the future, to set your sights higher, and sometimes you see what it is you DON'T want in life.
That was my experience, and somehow I thank Ryan for bringing back what had become a faded memory.