Not sure what throwing coal in a furnace has to do with the mental exertion required to be a programmer, but maybe the point of being persistent makes sense.
It is very insulting to expect that the experience of working in a factory or mining environment will translate at all as skills necessary for programming.
It’s also very insulting to imply that all some group of people is likely doing all day is throwing heaps of coal into a furnace. Even most seemingly simple blue collar jobs are usually pretty detailed and complex in their own way.
Keep telling yourself that, and hire a mason to do some machining, or the machinist to do your hair, or the hair stylist to do your doctoring, or your doctor to do your roofing, or the roofer to do your stocking, or the stocker to do your books, or the bookkeeper to do your cooking, or the cook to do work on your car.
I assure you, human beings are not mere cogs. The sooner you divorce yourself from the notion, the better off you and any employees will be.
Thats the problem with todays workforce, everyone is a specialist now. Heck even Subway has "Sandwich Artists" now!
IMHO programming is even more specialized than most jobs, it requires constant learning to maintain a productive ability.
Eg. Before 2013 how many people were doing react native programming? How many people are writing Pascal code today?
BTW does anyone really believe Joe Biden is an athority on coding? He probably thinks a coder is a guy sending messages by tapping a CW Keyer!