Not really a dumb reason, but back in the day I was stuck in the WordPress developer loop and tired of it. I was pretty familiar with a handful of languages, but wasn’t doing much more than setting up themes and building out pages with builders.

One day I heard the CTO talking about a tool he would love to have but couldn’t find anything that worked how he needed it to. The CTO was a big buzzword guy and recently shared an article with my manager at the time about how C++ was “the best language”. So naturally I chimed in and told him I could build that tool easy peasy and I would use C++ obviously because it’s the best language.

It was such a simple tool, basically just matching phrases and categories and spitting out a list of options. It took me months to make, but I learned a lot and it kind of worked for the most part and everyone was happy. I eventually got a de-facto department in the company where I would just build internal tools and handle some legacy codebases that they were previously outsourcing.

I later on got my current job because of that leap.

TLDR: I learned C++ because I was bored and lied that I already knew it.

If I wan unemployed and had no savings and no other job offers, of course I would take whatever job I could get. I hear the market is shit right now but still, it was never that hard to find a remote job if you’re qualified at least as a software dev.

Also my wife would let me turn down whatever job if it didn’t feel right as long as we’re covered. I turned down a job for ~60% more pay that would’ve required 2-3 days in the office about 40 minutes away for my current job that’s fully remote and let’s me make my own hours. I spent a couple nights working on my couch watching movies and working last week so I could take Friday off with full pay and go to a water park.

You cannot replace that freedom and extra time.

Although there are circumstances that could make me consider going into an office, they would have to be dier.

When I was looking for a new job a couple years ago I turned down a lot of on-site and hybrid job for the sole reason that they weren’t fully remote. Some of the jobs actually interested me and I would have loved to take at the time. And I can assure you I am far from wealthy.

Working from home I get to see my wife during the day, play with my son whenever I want, make my own lunch in my kitchen, water my garden during the day, work outside if I want to.

The peace of mind that it brings me is worth $400k. That’s the minimum I would take to go into the office no more than 30 minutes away once a week at most.

I know that’s unrealistic but so is making employees go into the office for something they’re fully capable of doing at home.

Back in the day I had a friend who ran essentially a fish dispensary and had a good connection on quality fish antibiotics. I would stock up on a bunch of stuff whenever they were making an order.

My numbers are surely off but I was paying something like $5 for ~500 amoxacillan, where at a rite aid or CVS you’d be paying, what $50 for 14 pills. The same ingredients, the same markings, the same thing. Just a lot cheaper for fish.