That was such a cool course. It seems ancient now, but I remember enjoying it at the time.

I don't disagree with what you're getting at, just understand that loyalty is a necessity to a lot of folks, and I don't think it is because their values are misplaced.

Here's the thing. Every job is a job. Even "doing what you love" comes with days when you really don't feel like doing it. There is no perfect job that will contain all the things you like about work and none of the things you don't like about work.

Furthermore, you will never ever get the first years of your kid(s) life back. You should be present for those years. Being burnt out and hating your job does not leave you the mental bandwidth to be present.

Taking a less glamorous job to make space in your life for other pursuits is not bad. Even if it's just for little while to reset. And have some perspective: you can enjoy some aspects of a job without enjoying all aspects. Pick what is most important for you and optimize for that. And the most important aspect is not fixed; it will change depending on your season in life.

I don't think I've ever been actually burnt out, but I have experienced the gamut of job satisfaction. You break out of it through self-reflection and understanding what you actually like and dislike about a job, and what really matters to you in life and how to build around that.

For a small, organically growing firm like my employer, unlimited PTO is just shorthand for "we don't have the back office staff to track this, so just don't abuse it". Yes, totally subjective, but the point is when you're scrappy you don't have time to make Policy all the livelong day.

As we've grown and evolved we ditched the messaging of unlimited PTO because of the negative connotation it has that everyone here has rightfully pointed out. "Does unlimited mean none?" is a verbatim question I've fielded in an interview.

Anyway, I explain OP's question as what I call the career trifecta:

1. You are working on things that have meaning to you

2. You enjoy working with the people around you

3. The pay and benefits give you space to pursue life's other interests

Most people in the world don't get one of those, much less all three. I have all three and now I'm a spoiled brat and don't want to give up one of them to get more of the other (i.e., more salary doesn't make life better if you lose one of the other pillars).

Assumes facts not in evidence. My experience has been people tend to blame the platform supplier first and foremost.

1990s OEM computer maker loads a bunch of crapware on your PC? You're likely to blame Microsoft Windows.

SimCity doesn't run on Windows 95 because of a bug in SimCity? You're likely to blame Windows 95. Microsoft at least understood that dynamic.

iPhone acting weird? Apple's fault, obviously, no questions asked. It's the default position of consumers.

I agree with your assertion that this is a knock on the Apple brand for a certain subset of their audience. I don't think it matters to the lay user as much as it does to the power user.

"Software dev" encompasses a wide variety of work. As a simplified example, if you were a senior frontend JS dev who wanted to get into writing kernel modules, you might have to take a job title and/or pay cut since you're less senior in that niche than your current one. But if you really want to be a kernel dev, it might be worthwhile.

So, what do you want to do? What kind of dev do you want to be? Will the new gig get you closer to that, regardless of title? Thinking beyond just tech stack to how you want this arc of your career to progress, will new job be better?

Also look at non-tech stack things. Do you like your team? Do you like your industry? Has your boss treated you well? Do you have equity opportunities at current or new gig? Which stack/niche has a higher ceiling of potential opportunity?

It was a delightfully simple "game" and we enjoyed comparing stats.

That coworker has since passed away, and I think of this game every now and then as I reflect on our friendship.

I don't know why it's on Hacker News's front page today, but it brought a smile to my face.

You can make changes today that will pay dividends in 10 years, so maybe focus on that instead.

I was widowed pretty young (as widowers go), so I have done my share of playing the what-if game with the past. Ultimately it is not a productive exercise, and I try not to do it. If I catch myself dwelling in unlived lives, I try to refocus on the one still in front of me.

You may be surprised to learn how false and limiting this belief is. Turns out most of those people are also just winging it, so if you wing it too, hey, you may actually reach a better outcome.

You don't have to love every day of a job to love the job. You can love the organization even as you need to let it go (or it needs to let you go).

He's proud of the arc of his career and understands that sometimes a good thing needs to come to an end for a new good thing to begin.

Endings are bittersweet. You can focus on the bitter, or you can focus on the sweet. He seems to be doing the latter.

I'm setting up study areas in the house for the kids that are away from each other and me. I'm going to get comfortable headphones for their school-issued Chromebooks.

The plan is instructional blocks that include webinars, basically, along with some study time with the teacher available online. They can come up to my office if they have questions as well.

I built out my home office to mirror my work office this past spring, so I'm pretty well setup to be a remote employee and hopefully the quiet spaces I setup for the kids will be good for their remote learning.

You will likely have peak earning years, and that means earnings will decline post-peak. For most people this is true, not everybody.

If you know this is a likely pattern, you can do something about it. Namely, live below your means, invest, bank raises, keep a lid on lifestyle inflation, and accept that some day you will take a job that pays less than your previous job and that this change should not be ruinous.

If Wegman's went public and had to meet the demands of Wall Street investors, I think they would lose what makes them special.

I can't think of an example of a large, closely held firm in tech.

What's really surprising is when a new store opens (restaurant, typically), and they don't have a chip reader on day one. They still swipe.

I've had my card skimmed more times than I can count over the decades. That we're still dealing with this problem in 2019 is maddening.