That's my dream, to take a normal job. I hope to one day be able to afford working on construction sites, laying railroad or something meaningful. Or even going back to washing dishes in a crazy Tokyo restaurant.
Status wise, I'm not sure there's much difference, being a software engineer is not something I'm proud of. When you talk to people, they can immediately tell if you're intellectual anyway.
If a highly educated person works with something manual, I think most people will assume that they do that because they like it, and not look down on them. But then I do live in Scandinavia where people are far less obsessed with financial status. I think most people here are more impressed if someone is a struggling actor or professional juggler, than if they're a management consultant making 10 times more.