Before getting my dev job, I taught myself some java and made a program to assist myself in the position I was working. It was borderline a keyloger, but it helped me with a lot of repetive tasks. Long story short, our security didn't dig that I installed something they didn't approve (I probably could have just not made it an exe and gotten away with it but my boss wanted it as an exe to run on other computers) they didn't know exactly what it was. I totally understood the security concerns though but they sure gave me a fucking heart attack right before my interview for my first dev job! Was seriously worried I was going to be fired and miss my big chance to make it in with out a degree.