My dev story: My First Day As a Developer

I made it! I got my first job in the IT industry. My learning finally got paid off ❤. I was ready to write all the HTML and CSS I’d learned, I was finally a programmer, proudly keeping my badge in sight so that everyone could see that I’m smart, corporate, and very busy. I even started drinking coffee differently, I was looking smarter when going to the bathroom. I’m sure everyone noticed it… I could hear the applause around me.

Of course, I was just a little worm thinking of himself being a unicorn and no one cared about my new achievement. Happiness is subjective, right? :)

During my first day, nothing interesting happened basically, I got my laptop, my badge, I’ve got a tutorial on how to use the toilet, “here are the meeting rooms”, and I was trying to squeeze money into the coffee machine cause I couldn’t imagine it being free.

The project and the “look, here is the code” effect

Of course, I was barely able to open a Word document, and someone needed to GIT clone my repository. I instantly noticed the slow internet connection in the office…

Visual Studio (not Code) suddenly displayed a scrollable list of folders, I thought I opened the Windows folder by accident…

No, that was the project I was about to work on… WHAT?!

Where’s the index.html? Where is my styles.css file? Where’s my Notepad++? I instantly figured out that the internet connection was decent and the slow cloning of the repository was caused by other obvious factors… I could say that this was the highest reward for my IQ on that day and suddenly, the unicorn started being a worm eaten by a rat.

I felt like the most helpless human on Earth. I couldn’t understand anything, the HTML was not HTML, “Oh look, a new HTML writing style”… can I start writing my own HTML style and it will magically work?!

No one told me what to expect, I was alone facing this huge change in my life, I was working and I couldn’t understand why my salary is getting paid. I was thinking that if too many employees like me are like me, the company will go bankrupt and I won’t be able to get my 1000-dollar salary ever again.

I literally couldn’t understand what was happening and I couldn’t wait for the day to end so that I could go home and cry. I was crying because everyone was trying to help me and I still couldn’t understand a thing, the change was astonishing, I felt squeezed and humiliated. Everyone’s English was perfect and I couldn’t spit out two sentences.

What next?

I cried like a baby enough and I said to myself: “Instead of crying, get involved and try to do something!”. I needed to do something, ask more questions, and try to learn, I started to break stuff so that I can make the links. What benefit will I get complaining that I’m just a little helpless worm?! Face it! If I’m gonna fail, at least I failed to fight.

My long-term plan was to get another day of work, learn as much as possible, and get paid for it. I even felt like I’m cheating on the company by getting the paycheck but what can I do?! Somebody needs to put bread on the table…

Later on, I understood that the company had a very clear view and a well-defined plan for me and I wasn’t the black hole of the financial department.

Key takeaways

If you plan to make a career change or you want to start your career in this industry, the best thing to do is to expect the worst and try not to put pressure on yourself. Time will make you see the big picture. Being a developer is not just about being a headless coding machine.

You will feel outdated all the time, it’s just that you will get used to it.

Thanks for reading! ❤