Embarrassing Story. Moral: Take Care of Your Health

For obvious reasons I created a new account for this post.

I just had a miserable 8 days where I suffered from an embarrassing and painful ailment called hemorrhoids which were the byproduct of a two day hack-a-thon. As embarrassing as this is to write, I wanted to provide a word of warning to hopefully prevent someone from having to endure the same annoyance.

Because I have a full-time job and only have weekends to work on our startup, last Saturday-Sunday we coded for 12 hours, slept 5, then coded for another 12. During that time, I sat at my desk for virtually every minute. I was certainly uncomfortable at times, but was getting so much done that I kept telling myself to grin and bear it. This was a catastrophic mistake! You should move around and shift positions a lot. Also, get a good chair. My wood chair with a cushion is not built for long term comfort.

My second error was diet. My diet constituted chips, cookies, soda, and candy. As peculiar as that sounds, I have always found a diet rich in junk food to be advantageous for coding. Turns out, it may help you accomplish more in a few hours, but it could cost you days of lost productivity if your system doesn't handle it well.

Finally on Monday I developed the problem which stemmed from the weekend. Twas a grind of a week and had to miss work nearly all of last week.

Until last week, I thought Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, poor eyesight, and bad posture were the only occupational hazards of hacking. Not so!

I hope by sharing this someone will avoid a repeat situation.

Please list any other warnings or health tips for hackers. And Merry Christmas!