Why would I rather choose to work with a pickaxe than with people

My aunt and me are only members of my extended family with college education. When I was a student, she encouraged me to study using this words:

- The book is tough but I wouldn't replace it with a pickaxe. 

Well, it is not problem with a book, but the problem could be it the place where this book takes you.

When I was a kid, I worked in the video club and saw a hundred frustrated people every day. You could give them a smile, but often it is not given back. Most of them see you as a machine, they treat you like a wall with their concrete faces, without any please or thank you. 

My early life taught me that, on any job, I don't see what I see and I don't hear what I hear.

For example, a married couple came in the video club where I was working. They were in very intensive quarrel without noticing me standing there. They said many bad and ugly things to each other, and finally asked me to recommend a movie for them.

Now you can imagine a person who works on some counter and there is long line of people who wait in the line in front of this counter. They are tired and frustrated and, actually, blaming that person for that long line and their other problems. That person sees a thousand people every day , listens to their demands and it is not easy to stay normal in these working conditions.

When I finished my college, I worked few years as an engineer and I was doing plans and projects for houses, static analysis and other stuff and my some of my clients dared to call me every ten minutes with their new ideas or they tried do force me to do my job faster for their needs. 

Many of them were calling me on Saturday night or on Sunday at 7 AM. 

Later, I became a school teachers. It is much better to work with kids than with grown ups. But, as anywhere else in the world, there are good kids and bad kids. Their parents don't see it that way. Their children are perfect. So, they blame a school teacher for bad grades and bad behavior...

Now, just give me that pickaxe!