I&#x27;ve never mined coal, but I did fly-in&#x2F;fly-out work at coal mines surveying, and compared to coding it had the following benefits:<p><pre><code>  - way better pay (not everywhere pays developers like the US)
  - kept me in shape
  - I slept a lot better during that job
  - satisfaction of jobs completed (no maintenance for topo data)
  - no micromanagment, open plan offices, daily stand-ups
  - predictable, stable working hours
  - etc. etc.
</code></pre>
I don&#x27;t do it now - 10 days out of every 14 is too long for me to stay away from my family - so I guess in the end the bad outweighed the good. But I just want to make the point that it&#x27;s easy to assume that building boring CRUD apps is the best road to go down if you too quickly dismiss the other paths that can be taken.