Yeah, IMHO it's good to learn quickly that other people's perceptions of you - if they don't achieve results that you need them to, don't matter. Making sure you are happy is the most important thing. Trying to make people you don't respect respect you and is also kind of a terrible thing to force yourself to do, it feels like selling your soul every single second. It's worse when the people you are trying to get to respect you already don't, so it's better to drop the illusion. Care about helping people who care that you are helping them.

Agreed. Luckily I am 28 and don't have kids yet. Hopefully I will get to a point before I do have kids where I can be a little more free.

You could spend that 4 hours developing a side project. 4 hours a day is a LOT of time.

Often times that is what I am doing during my breaks. Resolving github issues or answering side project emails. So it really all does work out.

There is potentially a big legal difference between tinkering on your side projects at work, compared to carving out time for them at home. Unless you have a specific exemption in your contract, then your employer owns all your work that you do in the office or on their equipment.

You'll get in legal trouble if you do that on company time and on company premises.

No, I mean, you can go home after 8 hours (or whatever your contract says), and work on your own shit.