An Ode To Side Project Time

There seemed to be a hot minute when the tech industry understood the value of idle tinkering and made a point of providing ‘side project time’ as an explicit working perk. The concept endures — I’m lucky enough to work somewhere that has it — but it seems to have been outpaced in recent years by the endless charge toward efficiency.
This seems a shame. We can’t optimize our way to quality solutions and original ideas. To try is a self-defeating fantasy. The v