Reflecting on 100 Days of Coding (R100 Series)—Introduction

Back in March, I had a job stacking pallets. For one week. It was straightforward honest work, but I wasn’t getting anywhere I needed to be. So I dropped that job, shifted to helping my grandparents, and studied code when I wasn’t doing that (or waiting in a procrastinatory terror for my grandfather to announce that he needed to do what comes naturally to all men).

(BTW, I swear I’m going to come up with a shorter version of this title so you know what the heck it is but I can make more interesting specific titles … Now I’ve got it—R100 Series.)

So I’ll be sharing posts I put up on LinkedIn and commenting on what I learned.

This series will have quite a lot to it. I’m not done learning coding, so as each new effort at learning to code lays down another sedimentary layer and geological processes turn it into another sample of marble that I might lose my marbles once more, there will be more.

So to take us out…

Saturday after first week at pallet company.

One principle from those [Fill in the blank] Anonymous groups is that you change when the pain of continuing in your problem is greater than the comfort of staying the same.

Aching muscles really aren't too much of a problem. Stacking pallets is honest work.

But...

>How do you get a quality date on an "I stack pallets" wage? (This is one of the greater pain points. If I want to get married, I've got to show up having taken care of basic human responsibilities.)
>How do you take the courses or whatever that get you to your next life and career step when you're shriveled up from working all day? (Maybe I'd be better after my body adjusts.)
>What kind of career could you step into, if you're not near million-dollar multipliers? (I don't have any ideas that are going to revolutionize the pallet industry. Maybe for machines to automate certain of the tasks, but given some of the machines I saw this last week, maybe someone's already working that out.)

Stacking pallets isn't the problem.

Not solving the career question IS.

I just got off a fantastic call with Jason Stevens, who gave me some feedback I can take immediate action on. (I'm avoiding the abominable word "actionable.")

Your next best friend may be just around the corner and the world is a dodecahedron, so get help finding the right corner.

Next step in the story on Monday.

The idea at the time was to keep working on freelance copywriting while stacking pallets. I believe in earning my own wages (though if the wages of sin are death I’d like to be a slacker), and there’s nothing shameful in stacking pallets.

But between having zero energy at the end of a day of stacking pallets and reckoning with more sawdust that I was aware existed and contending with the personal strain of running my own business, I decided: I CAN’T DO THIS.

So I went in for coding.

I picked my past efforts of coding up off the floor of my brain that had been rolling around like the glass soda bottle you might buy when making a trip to Mexico because nostalgia is an imperious mistress and that thereafter goes on to roll around on the floor of your car.

And so the fun began.