“It did not even come even close to occurring to me back then that the nerdy things I liked to do for fun would allow me to dodge any kind of manual labor job, basically forever.”
An 18-year-old walks into a highway garage in 1982, sees the asphalt and walks out. His father fixed cars from childhood. The son found a career where the heaviest thing he lifts is a laptop. Most programmers got the same lucky break and call it merit.