I found I got more cynical, definitely more grumpy, but also a lot more patient with a lot of the day to day nonsense that generally gets in the way of doing the things I like to do.

It's also extremely rewarding to help newer people in the game to see a lot of what goes on as just noise -

in particular inept management, various fads around development methodologies, and the excuses companies give for not paying them fairly.

Writing about it on here helps, it's not quite secret but it's very cathartic nonetheless...