When you tell people that you are a web developer they start to see you as a different person. You'll get questions like, "Why isn't my Wi-Fi working" or "Can you tell me the best website for cheese". It can get pretty hilarious when the non-techy people around you start to think you're a master of the internet and all the things it holds.
Once you reveal your web development powers, your life will change in the most interesting ways.
You now know how to fix computer problems.
It doesn't matter if you've never worked with anything more complex than a flash drive. Once people know you work with computers in some form, you'll become the go to person for all computer problems. Be ready to explain to people that you aren't sure why their mouse isn't working or what happened to that folder they needed.
Although you will start to learn some of the answers to these questions if you have enough friends, family, and co-workers ask you repeatedly. Soon you might actually know how to fix computer problems.
You control the internet.
Web developers make websites so that means they control them all, right? Someone might even ask you why Netflix is down or if you can speed it up. After you explain to them a few times that you can't get access to every website they'll back off for a while.
Then something else will pop up and you'll have another random question about a website you don't even know about. The good thing is that you'll be able to explain servers and cyber security to them and they will both learn something new and go tell more people about it.
You are tech support.
This is especially true if you work for a smaller company that lumps I.T. and software together. So don't be surprised when someone comes to you freaking out about the network being down. Also, don't be surprised when they get a little irritated if you have no idea what to do about it.
Get ready to answer user questions about the web app you're building while you are working on bugs that will fix the problems they are griping about. Get ready to sharpen those critical people skills because this is the time that they will grow the most.
I know some of these things sound ridiculous, but you'd be surprised by the questions people ask. Not everybody is tech savvy and most of the time they'll appreciate it when you explain stuff to them without being condescending.
Hopefully you got a few chuckles out of this. What are some of the weirdest, most non web development related questions you've gotten because people know you write some sort of code? People make the assumption that I'm a hacker just because they saw some JavaScript in a black IDE. It's easier to go along with them sometimes.
This is the last week you can enter the giveaway for a free month of my web development class. You have until Dec. 14th (which is Friday). I'll announce the winner on Dec. 17th! Go ahead and enter here