plus, potential employers have to find a reason to either hire or not hire you; not having a degree is a reason and it means that you have to impress them so much that, that fact doesn’t even occur to them if that’s your situation.

found myself laughing at this reply in the comments:

this sounds like a nightmare to me, so i wonder what i’m missing?

i also didn’t find the article painful; it was refreshing to learn that someone else is walking in these shoes when it feels like so many aren’t.

I call myself a programmer because I’ve been been doing IT for so long that it’s impossible not to pick it up to get my job done.