CoffeeScript always felt forced onto me during the height of 37Signal's influence of software development trends at the time. At the only rails shop I ever worked at it was heavily resisted.

It was at the same time I was reading more and more of Resig blogs and books (Secrets of the JavaScript ninja) and I really began to learn and grok just plain normal JavaScript. I said to myself, "you know, this really isn't that bad"

Haven't looked back since. I hate the direction ES is going.