Five Days. One Dev. Zero Chill.
Welcome to SimWeek.I'm using my vacation to simulate being a junior developer because stress testing my systems counts as rest now. It is complete with fake deadlines, AI curveballs, and interruptions from imaginary coworkers.
This is a real-time, daily Devlog of everything I’m learning, breaking, Googling, crying about, and fumbling through as I try to build both a website and a working routine. Follow along for chaos, code, and occasional cameos by my dogs.
TL;DR - July 8 - Day 0
Day 0 hit hard. Between barking dogs, phone calls, and a fake Slack message from “Taylor” asking for placeholder imagery by EOD, my scheduled hour was gone before it started.
In today's entry: I learn about boundaries (for dogs and myself), spiral over the lack of Black folks in stock photography, and try to resize 7000px images without losing my mind or skin tones.
On Sunday, I penciled in my "office hours" for the week. Each day, I dedicated five hours to four key areas: my Skillcrush coursework, Front End Mentor (FEM), personal project, and tech writing (e.g. dev articles, takeaways, notes, etc). After I gave ChatGPT all the deliverables I wished to accomplish, I asked it to optimize and create a checklist for me. Yes, like Michelle Obama, I'm a box checker. Turns out, the “margin of error” isn’t just a CSS thing. It’s how much chaos you can withstand before breaking.
Skillcrush - 11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m
So, I didn't need to simulate stress--Life delivered. I was 45 minutes in and had already taken two stressful calls—dentist and bank. Not the kind of debugging I had in mind. Puppy dog eyes persuaded me to let them sit in the office with me while I code. I usually listen to the Memoirs of a Geisha soundtrack and deep dive. Not today. Because of the open window, the dogs barked at every. Single. Noise. They had to leave. Once it was quiet again, I asked ChatGPT to create a realistic stressor given to a junior developer. I had 15 minutes left, so I didn't want to waste the FEM hour. But I was determined to accomplish something from Skillcrush hour, so I completed two practice quizzes. With five minutes left, I jotted down my takeaways.
Front End Mentor - 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m
Still wanting to salvage this hour while VSCode was updating, I reviewed the curveball. Here is Taylor” message:
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Cool. I’d grab some images, create a folder, spin up a new GitHub branch, and drop them in. Easy peasy.
For stock images, my go-to is Pexels. It is free with high-quality photos. However, I became increasingly frustrated with the site. I struggled to find stock photos of black people, other people of color, or people with disabilities. It was primarily white, able-bodied people. And when I did find an image that checked all the boxes, it was behind a paywall. Look, I graduated with a Bachelor's in Costume Design and Technology and an Associate in World Literature and Art History. ALWAYS Pay and Cite artists for their work(looking at you scraping-AI 👀). However, it was a struggle to find stock photos that weren't cheesy, contrived, or behind a paywall. It's funny because right now I'm reading “Unmasking AI” by Joy Buolamwini, and she speaks about coded bias in technology. Yes, it is just stock photos--but it matters. You can't become what you don't see.
Tangent Thought 1: I possess a Canon camera, so maybe I need to start taking and posting stock photos? Be the change I want to see.
Tangent Thought 2: If anyone knows a site that has actual diversity & inclusion imagery, comment below!!
I spent longer than I should have. But this hit close to home: I’m often either the only Black person or one in a handful in these artsy spaces. So finding and adding Black patrons and artists wasn’t a delay—it was a small act of defiance.
Front End Mentor - 1:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m
Once I found some images, I created a SimWeek folder, a Github branch, and added the images. Before moving on to placeholder text, I double-checked to make sure the photos would fit for mobile-first design. Y'all, why did no one warn about image optimization? The dimensions for the hero image were 7360 x 4912. It was already 1 pm, so my options were: download a plugin to resize the images, visit compression websites, or use Canva. Initially, I went to compression websites. However, the quality dropped, and the compression made the images look worse--especially on dark skin. And I didn’t have time to download a plugin, so I watched a YouTube video on how to compress images using Canva. Check out this great tutorial from WPLearningLab on how to compress images:
How To Compress Images For Website For Free WITHOUT A PLUGIN
Placeholder imagery. ✅
Front End Mentor - 2:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m
This was supposed to be time for my personal project and dev writing. But neither happened. Accepting defeat, I focused on creating realistic, placeholder text. Again, in hindsight, I should have just kept the FEM text. But it was too late, I already had a narrative in my head. This website would turn into a black-owned, contemporary art gallery in New York. After some back and forth with Copilot—honestly, who is better at titles than OpenAI or Gemini—I had placeholder text that felt believable. All I had to do was submit my work to ChatGPT, but I couldn't. The layout and font styling were wrong. I had to fix it.
Front End Mentor - 3:00 p.m. - 3:55 p.m
I know ‘Taylor’ said EOD, but what did that even mean?
Did EOD mean I had until 4:00 pm? Or 2:00? Or 3:00?
_Ugh, should have asked for a more precise deadline. _
Did they care about the margins and padding, or just the imagery and text?
Dang, ChatGPT told me to ask those questions, but...hubris. Well, it is too late now. I worked until 3:30. I sent a response to “Taylor”. “Taylor” gave me some notes, but overall, I did okay. “Taylor” didn't say anything about timing, so I guess I'm in the clear. Curious what the design team will say. 🤔
Here was my original answer to the prompt:
Here was ChatGPT's better response to the prompt:
DevLog Reflection
Today was chaotic, but I am giving myself grace. I know what you are wondering, "Why stress myself unnecessarily"? After all, I'm still in the Skillcrush Front-End Certification course and have a full-time job. Because the goals of this week are two-pronged: 1) build and set systems in place to work from home, and 2) get time management under control.
As Front End Mentor puts it: ‘Project estimations are a skill that is often overlooked but essential for professional developers.’ I need to rein that skill in. Another takeaway: schedule breaks. I hadn’t moved from my seat until 3:55 p.m., when my partner begged me to eat. During dinner, I promised to schedule breaks this week.
Today wasn’t hard because of the code. It was hard because I didn’t have systems.
Tomorrow will be better.
Top comments (6)
I love this!!! What an in-depth simulation you've created! I would be very curious to see the prompts you used to come up with this. This is a great way to prepare for something when you don't really know what you're going to encounter. And Taylor must be working at every company or organization because receiving vague requests is all too familiar🤣
Here is the prompt I used:
alrighty, Let's add 1 realistic stressor (e.g., last-minute bug, senior dev request) to simulate a junior dev handling a curveball. For context, I am a new hire junior dev working on the front-end mentor art gallery project. I have finished writing the global styles for the CSS, and currently working on the HTML, mobile first, of course
Love how real this is - respect for calling out the stock image struggle too. Did you end up finding any sites with genuinely diverse photos?
No 😮💨. It is on my to-do list. Until then, my search strategy remains the same: adding 'Black woman,' 'Black people,' etc, to get closer to what I need.
A thoughtful and authentic reflection. Your dedication to growth, inclusion, and structure is truly commendable. Looking forward to the next update.
Aw, thank you!