I have a dirty confession to make too: I’ve been running Tahoe and Windows 11 on my devices, and both are working fine for the most part. If I ever switch to Linux desktop, it will be mostly out of boredom.
Likewise! I built my personal blog with Astro and host on Cloudflare (username.dev), and feel guilty about taking advantage of such excellent software and free tier. Here’s hoping they find a way to take my money soon.
> ” I worked crazy hours in my early 20s because I liked it. I liked computers, I liked my team, and to be frank, I had not much else to do. If I went home early, I would be spending time on the internet anyway.”
This describes me almost exactly when I was in my 20s. However, I have far fewer regrets than you might. My career progressed a lot faster than it otherwise would have, and thanks to salary compounding my family enjoys much greater financial security than we otherwise might have. The institutional and product knowledge I gained in those days enables me to now have a much more relaxed work schedule and spend time with my family while still delivering value. And finally, it’s fun to walk through a lab and see the software I wrote unprompted over a few weekends still humming along two decades later on hundreds of stations.
I am under no illusion that my company is my family, but I didn’t do it for them. I did it for myself, and the company happened to benefit. There have never been any loyalty expectations on either side, and I would probably do it all over again.