@literary Well, there you go, then.
The question of the dignity of work reminds me of the father of a friend. He was a Designated Engineering Representative for the FAA, one of a handful of men who had the authority to sign off on aircraft maintenance and design projects on behalf of the federal government. He used to travel the world meeting with executives and government officials, and he would speak to the busboy at a restaurant in exactly the same way and with the same respect with which he spoke to the president of United Airlines. And if it was somewhere he'd been a year previously and got the same waiter, he'd remember the man or woman and ask after his/her family. Remarkable man, and something to emulate.