Instead of having to fight with a machine to give back my empty cans/plastic bottles, I can just give the delivery person a crate and get my money back.

Doesn't capture all my groceries, I love biking or walking to a smaller shop on occasion, or if I have a specific craving, but 90% of my groceries is delivery.

That said: there's definitely a price to pay for this. I'm very bad at managing energy levels, or making sure I do all of that in a sustainable way, so, it's super productive, until I'm not. At all. Usually quite suddenly. The risk for burnout is quite high.

I'm starting to accept that I'll never find the right balance, rather, I'm just getting better at recognising the symptoms that I'm headed towards burnout, and just accept that it's alternating periods of very high, intense productivity, and periods of basically nothing.

Putting one thing on my to-do list is the most surefire way of me not doing the thing.

Specifically for The Netherlands, https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/demystifying-european-digi... is a good read, from someone that really understands how this works in government.

Sadly, I understand why: they have a tonne of systems, that all, at least somewhat, work, that people know how to use, with established contacts and support contracts. IT departments trained and certified on how to run and deploy MS software. And that's before we start talking about lobbying.

edit: added a link to a good resource about the topic.

We should have started moving over yesterday, but it's a long and difficult process, I just hope we start moving forward on this.

Even with large amounts of money, it's not like they're knocking on doors, looking under yer bed.

It's the same thing with open world quest markers. Nowadays, a lot of open world games give the player the option to remove quest markers outright. It's great to have that choice. But compared to, for example Morrowind, it often turns out to be an exercise in frustration, because the quests and the world haven't been designed with that in mind ("Go south from Vivec and turn left at the third tree", followed by an internal dialogue about if you should count a stump as a tree and a four hour detour is one of my best memories).

There's also this middle ground: in Ghost of Tsushima you can summon the wind as a compass to guide you to your next quest marker. Mechanically it's the exact same thing as an arrow, or line to guide you. But the fact that it's so well integrated, and thematically fitting into the game, makes my brain experience it totally differently. Not needing it would be even better, but the way they implemented it is at least pleasant.

I wish more games had a journal to keep track of things :). Why do I need notepad open, or a wiki open when playing satisfactory? If I make the effort to calculate the exact amount of iron ore I need to perfectly match my iron rod production, it'd be great if I could keep track of that in game.

But being in Western Europe, most companies don't have this, and with the current state of the industry, with somewhat regular lay-offs, if I have to change jobs and want to stay an IC, I'll basically have reached the plateau of where I can get career-wise. The only way to get past that barrier is becoming an EM.

I hate to even have the thought, because, purely on principle, it's the worst reason to become an EM. But career-planning wise, I'd be crazy not to.

Anyway, your post is another argument in the column to stay on the technical track a bit more, we'll see what life brings :).

For the Netherlands: While it differs per bank, legally you're allowed to pay up to 10% of your mortgage extra per year (some banks offer higher rates, I can do 20% for example) without extra costs. When the rate changes (due to going from fixed to variable, or variable with a large change in a year) you're allowed to pay back as much as you want, without extra costs.

If you want to pay back more/faster, the bank calculates a fee ("loss of income due to lost interest payments") that you have to pay, which is still cheaper than just doing your regular payments.

The above statement also applies if you want to refinance if, for example, your home went up in value. They can and will drop your rate but you have to pay a fine. That being said, in the past, when rate drops were really large, you could go to a different bank, have them take over your mortgage pay the fine for you just so they can get you to come to them (though I'm assuming they're no longer so keen on that).

Needless to say, I'm back at a fully remote place now. I'm fine if they offer hybrid, not everyone has the room/situation to work from home. I can imagine that for some, having a desk at an office is a net benefit, but don't make me come over and waste my time because you have control issues.

Not that there aren't any problems, and there are definitely "dead zones" so to speak, but the situation you're describing isn't valid everywhere.

In my experience, strong opinions about details tend to derail conversations, drain energy out of a group and just make things more difficult than they need to be.

At work they use a lot of tools that have better alternatives, or alternatives that I prefer, but I choose to work with what I have and just get shit done.

It just feels to me like some sort of secret we all share and pretend like it's fine, but being honest and just doing the same stuff in say 32 hours and cutting out the cruft in between would be great.

Or maybe it's just my add that likes a bit more pressure, I don't know. But what I do know is that, even with a very relaxed employer that allows you to take your time and chill, go workout or play a game for an hour, I can't fully relax or disconnect knowing that I'm expected to do those 40 hours, regardless of how often they say it's fine.

Never say never, there might be stuff that's interesting enough to get me to the office occasionally, but if it's up to me, I'll never be in an office five days a week again.

It's also nice that I happen to live in a country that gives a tax break on your (monetary, not stock) income, so that makes the choice for money even easier.

Reinvest it in an index fund, and forget about it. Yeah, I might miss out on significant gains, but I might also not. Less risk for a reasonable yield.

Thank you for sharing, this started of my day very well, had a hearty chuckle.