all this, four naught

It was a contractual obligation.

Takes me back to my childhood.

You wound me. I’ve been wounded.

Not really. I have unavoidable financial obligations coming soon that I will need this payrate for. I actually love the work I do, too, but I have a distaste for the employer, so it’s a weird feeling. I get to play with Linux and containerization and Python, which I love, and I’m generally self-managed, so the only thing wrong with the job is that, at the end of the day, my work feels wasted where I’m doing it. On the other hand, I use the skills I gain at work outside of work on OSS stuff, so it’s an OK tradeoff.

I do. I’m riding out the clock. I’ve already put the time in and am grandfathered into better retirement/severance benefits than I could get anywhere else. I hate it, but I have a family to feed.

No. I usually have to wrap mine around my forearm a dozen or so times to keep it out of the water.