I worked a McJob (actually the McJob) from 16-20, and it was probably my main motivation in getting into the CS department at UW (it helped that I was interested in computers and seemed to have a talent for the field). Sometimes I wonder if any of my colleagues had to go through that, but many did. Surely not all of us programmers came from stable upper middle class or better backgrounds.

I did have some really good managers though, people I couldn’t believe weren’t doing better things (and some real bad ones, too, of course).