My Start

I will try not to bore you with the details but I've taken a strange journey to being a developer/programmer. Some find this journey pretty neat, while others don't think much at all about it.

After "barely" graduating high school, I entered into the adult world and looked to live my life the only way I really knew how. My parents never went to college and worked mainly blue-collar jobs. While my mom worked more in offices, it was still fairly blue-collar. Clock in at 7am and clock out whenever the job is done. My dad worked in a factory for 30+ years then worked for the local parks department. Living in small-town Indiana, only the "select" few did something other than factory, manufacturing, warehouse, etc., etc.

I hopped around a few of these jobs until I landed at Fleetwood. While the job itself was nothing glamorous, the pay wasn't too bad and they had weekly bonuses. I spent years at this job and learned a lot along the way. My department was electrical and RVs are a cross between a house and a car so that knowledge, to this day, has been very beneficial. After a few years, my boss (Group Leader) asked if I would like to become the Assistant Group Leader. Being the least tenured and youngest in my department, this opened my eyes to meritocracy. There were a couple of people in the department that had been there for years and thought they should get the title (job, I meant job). But those people missed a lot of work and gave minimal effort. This opened my world view a lot for some reason. I started thinking if you just work for something, you can attain it. Instead of you'll attain things just because you think you should.

Anyways... those are not well thought out typings but that's ok. Just trying to give you a jist of my start. Fleetwood was huge part of my molding and while I do not miss the actual work, I cherish the memories and skills obtained there. I do miss some of the people too. My next post, I'll explain how I went from a manufacturing job in Decatur, IN to a web developer living in Avon, IN.