I didn't want to go into programming after I got my CS degree mostly due to the terrible job market where I lived in 2000 after the dot-com crash. I had a year

I didn't want to go into programming after I got my CS degree mostly due to the terrible job market where I lived in 2000 after the dot-com crash. I had a year where I traveled and had jobs like handing out fliers, picking pears, and pruning vines. Then I moved to the US, spent six months living on a sofa while working as a mechanic, then as a part-time computer repair guy. It's liberating working blue-collar jobs because you really don't have to care, and certainly don't think about the job out-of-hours. I learnt that there were two kinds of jobs--those that you shower before work and those you shower after. The real lesson was that you really can't have a decent living on minimum wage. I ended up calling every local web design firm in the Yahoo! Directory and begging for a job. I feel privileged that a decade late I'm earning nearly eight times minimum wage and that I can enjoy the trappings that come with that.