> There is no amount Nintendo could have raised salaries that would have avoided the GP comment, is the point.

Correct.

Which is exactly as it should be, as there also is no amount of profit increase that would satisfy company owners.

If you are satisfied with your pay, consider enjoying the time that has been freed up for you.

Fully agree — growing a tomato from a seed to food or making a brew that makes you feel dizzy is just as ”magical” as fiddling a calculator to display text on a screen.

The attitude that the quoted passage displays is in fact one of the more disheartening aspects of programming for me.

Also applies to the very tired ”work smarter, not harder” saying: it never means working less with the time you gain but actually means ”work smarter so you can work even more”

At some point, you stop working though right? And all that smart work probably earned you enough money to retire early compared to someone working a dead end job.

Thankfully the trend of boasting about "multitasking" has died. A decade or two back everyone seemed to think it was a good idea.

That depends on your career goals and your attitude towards the concept of "buffer time", though.