A few years ago, I called a plumber to fix a leaky pipe. After he wrapped up, we got to talking, and he mentioned that at the beginning of his career he began buying rental properties. Over the decades, he kept buying more rentals and now had around 40. I was shocked because his net worth was probably in the neighborhood of $20 million. Outside of business leaders I’ve interviewed as a reporter, he’s one of the wealthiest people I know.

I was thinking about this recently when a debate erupted over the types of jobs people, and especially young men, ought to pursue, especially in the time of soaring college costs.

On one hand, some are arguing that young men need to work hard and accept whatever work they can get. Conservative commentator Christopher Rufo ignited the conversation when he made this point on X, noting that a Panda Express restaurant near him was offering $70,000 for an assistant manager position. People can make $100,000 a year working at Chipotle, Rufo said.

Sounds straightforward enough. But many pushed back, and a growing chorus is now urging young men to avoid “low-status” jobs, saying they are “demeaning” and professional dead ends. The conversation struck a chord because so many men are struggling right now.

The problem, though, is that the very idea of “low-status” jobs devalues work. It’s also simply wrong. Yes, some jobs are grueling and lack prestige. But they are not necessarily dead ends. For plenty of people, entry-level work with no barrier to entry is a stepping stone to something much better. Young men in particular need to be aware of this. And in that light, we need a better definition of success, one less preoccupied with a small number of prestigious positions and more focused on hard work, drive and living a well-rounded life.

What is a ‘low-status’ job?

To understand what’s going on, it’s useful to know that this debate arrives amid growing concern over male success. Richard Reeves — a former Brookings Institution fellow and author of “Of Boys and Men” — has become the foremost chronicler of male struggle, pointing out that boys are falling behind in high school and college, as well as in the workforce. The result of “male economic underperformance,” to quote the Institute for Family Studies’ Lyman Stone, is falling marriage rates and birth rates. And at the same time, an entire ecosystem of “bro culture” influencers have emerged to stoke the egos of disaffected young men.

Now, apparently, there are also job status bros.

What gets lost, though, is that plenty of so-called low-status jobs actually do have pathways to the top.

I’ve met quite a few people who followed this path while covering the housing beat as a journalist, though one in particular comes to mind. He began his career working as a driver for FedEx. Eventually, he earned a real estate license and became an agent — a job that for most people results in low wages and has a similarly low barrier to entry. Over time, however, he built a successful real estate business, launched a startup, and now owns multiple restaurants as well.

Is this man high status or low status? Should he have skipped his years hustling as a FedEx driver so he could have instead gone to Harvard? Would he be better off with more social media followers but a lower net worth?

Obviously, every FedEx driver doesn’t become a real estate mogul, nor does every plumber end up with a multimillion-dollar real estate portfolio. But I interview people with similar stories every week. People do manage to parlay the money and knowledge they acquire at early career low-status jobs into later positions of authority. And this type of career path has the advantage of being widely accessible.

Sure, if Google comes along with a coding job, do that. But the journey from, say, Panda Express assistant manager to restaurant franchisee largely depends on ambition and hard work. It’s meritocratic in a way that fields like media, law and politics only pretend to be. It may well be a better choice for many younger workers who wouldn’t be getting job offers at, say, white-shoe law firms anyway.

What is ‘the good life,’ anyway?

In any case, what this debate seems to expose is that there are two different ideas about power and status. On the one hand, the argument that young men ought to pursue conventionally high-status careers is an argument in favor of what’s sometimes called the professional or managerial class. In this world, prestige comes from the ladder you’re climbing. Having elite degrees and big names on a resume is the fuel that drives upward mobility.

But there’s also another group, which The Atlantic once described as the “gentry.” These are the local business owners. They’re people who own land. They’re car dealers and real estate brokers and franchise moguls. They’re people like my plumber, or that former FedEx driver, people who succeeded, then built that success into some type of influence. These are the people donating to homeless shelters, serving on the boards of local civic institutions and paying off school lunch balances en masse. The Atlantic described this group as “less exalted” than other elites but nevertheless sitting “at the pinnacle of America’s local hierarchies.”

So who has the most power? Who has the greatest ability to bring their vision of the world into reality? Who can accomplish the most good?

That last question, of course, hints at the silliness of this entire debate, which simply assumes that status is good in its own right, and that status invariably springs from professional achievement. But that isn’t necessarily the case.

I’m reminded here of a man in my sphere who long ago started his career working for UPS. He eventually did well enough to retire in his 50s, go back to school and study one of his passions. He then embarked on a second career doing exactly the things he enjoys.

This man is revered by many. Some know him through work, but many others know him via the service he renders in his religious congregation. He has a sprawling family and many grandkids. He did not parlay his delivery job into a company. But he has nevertheless achieved status in his community anyway because there are other sources — deeper sources, such as faith and family — from which success springs.

For people with big professional ambitions, there are many paths to the top, and young men should know that. Even menial jobs are not necessarily dead ends. But there are also people like this UPS driver, who built not a fortune but a good life. And in the end, perhaps that’s what we should be telling struggling young people — that there is no greater goal in life than to be surrounded by people you love.