It’s also my first year. Trust me my hands were yellow and sticky by the time I was finished picking.
What I’ve read online says you should pick them when they start getting firmer and having a papery feel to them, and outsides start getting sticky from the resin.
I’ve got thick skin from 20 years of handling cardboard boxes and metal shavings.
Towards the end I was thinking I should have worn long sleeves but it was 90°F (32°C) and that sounded like that would have been worse.