I worked a programming job for a law firm. I earned an associate's degree because I could not afford a four year degree. I majored in data processing with the programming option. When I applied for the job only an associates was required and it was 1997. After the Dotcom bubble burst in 1999-2000 HR decided to rewrite job descriptions. So they had me rewrite the job description for my position. I wrote that it needed an associates, and experience in programming etc. HR took it and changed one thing, a bachelors instead of an associates. I suddenly was no longer qualified for the job I held.

I was forced to work extra hours for no extra pay because I was salaried. I was under a lot of stress and assigned other people's projects until I was overwhelmed with them. I worked in St. Louis MO and my wife didn't want me to relocate and be in a different state so my job search was limited and nobody was hiring.

From the stress I developed a mental illness in 2001 and became disabled on short term disability. When I returned from short term disability I was fired for having a panic attack at work. They lost my doctor's notes that excused me and used them against me.

I tried another job in 2002 they used me to get their project to the next level, migrating from Excel to SQL Server for their database and optimizing the code. After the project was done, I was fired.

I ended up on disability in 2003, I went back to college to earn a bachelors but I was never medically cleared to go back to work.

I am 47 now, and I feel like my career is over. I had offers to work in the west coast but I could not relocate because of my wife not wanting me to leave out of state. I'm sure the working environment is different in SV and west coast companies.

But if other white men of a middle age had the stress that I had when working, I can see them developing a mental illness or turning to drug use. I never turned to drug use, but I had problems sleeping and waking up due to the stress.

I had friends who didn't go to college but learned programming by experience, they were expert programmers but lost their jobs because they didn't have college degrees and ended up working in retail jobs to make ends meet like Sam's Club.

I've known people with college degrees that didn't know what they were doing and I mentored them at work to get them started in programming. It is possible to earn a degree and still have problems doing the job they are hired for. For example programming classes teach how to write short programs that are very small, but writing larger more complex programs and how to debug them is not taught. That takes experience in the real world.