Anyone else find nesting parts weirdly relaxing, or is it just me?

I'm firmly in the hover camp, and I don't apologize for it. I run a small benchtop router on MDF and plywood mostly, and I learned my lesson the second month in when a clamp shifted halfway through a job and the bit chewed a half-inch gouge right through a cabinet side I'd allready spent an hour on. Since then I stay within a few steps of the machine for the whole run. That said, I don't stare at it like a hawk the entire time. I'll use the cut time to do small stuff nearby, sanding parts for the next batch, cleaning up, sorting hardware. I just glance over every thirty seconds or so and listen. Honestly the sound tells you more than your eyes. A bit starting to load up or a hold-down letting go makes a diferent noise before it makes a visible problem.

As for it being boring, no, not for me. Part of it is that I like knowing exactly where the job is. If a toolpath is going to be tight, say a shallow pass near a previously cut edge, I want to see it happen so I can trust that file next time. And yeah, there's something satisfying about watching a part seperate from the sheet exactly the way you pictured it when you drew it up. My wife also thinks I'm strange for this, so at least we're in the same boat there.

I'm on the other end of the spectrum. My machine lives in my garage and I run it pretty much unattended, but that's only because I earned it with the setup. Everything gets screwed down to a sacrificial MDF bed rather than clamps, and I run the first job of any new design in a cheap offcut at slow speed before I ever trust it on good stock. If a file survives the test cut, I'll happily go inside and make dinner while the real one runs.

The habit came from needing the hours. I build little boxes and signs to sell at markets on weekends, so an evening where I can run two or three sheets while also washing dishes or helping with homework is worth far more than an evening spent stood in a cold garage watching dust fly.

What I've noticed is that the failure modes I actually get now are boring ones. A bit goes dull and the cut gets fuzzy, or the vacuum loses suction on a corner. Both of those cost me a part, not a machine, and I find out at the end. The scary stuff got designed out of the process, not supervised out of it.

I'll admit the first couple of months I hovered like anyone else. Watching the thing work stopped being entertainment for me around job twenty and started being time I could spend on something else. My wife thinks it's odd that I now leave the room precisely because I love the machine, not in spite of it.

Started out on a manual mill back in the eighties where you cranked every handle yourself, so standing there watching was just the job. When I moved to CNC I couldn't shake the habit. My old boss used to say a machine will tell you it's unhappy a minute before it breaks somethig, if you're listening. He was right, I've caught a dull bit by ear more than once. These days I split the difference like the OP. Stay put through the first pass and any plunge moves, then settle into light duties close by. Funny thing is after forty years I still enjoy watching a part come off the table, same as the day I started.

Agree with the guy about listening being better than watching. That's exactly how I caught my one near-disaster. Was cutting small bracket parts and the vacuum lost suction on one piece, all I heard was the note of the cut change slightly and a little flutter in the sound. Glanced over and the part had shifted maybe an eighth of an inch. Hit stop fast enough to save it and just re-ran that one part later.

Now my routine is basicly his. I fold laundry or whatever in the same room and my ears do the monitoring. My wife thinks the laundry thing is the wierd part, not the watching.

Update: tried the listening thing a couple of you talked about, and it works. Caught the feed sound go thin on a pass yesterday and backed off before anything wandered. Still can't make myself leave the room though, so the coffee stays untouched. Do you unattended guys work on other projects in the garage while it runs, or is it more of a wander back every few minutes thing?