Woo. Don't call AI agents "cron jobs" in a meeting of AI bros. They will throw you out the window like on that one web comic meme.
@Sempf systemd never "shot my dog". The systemd timers is the first time I've really found something that impacted my life, to dislike. But then the systemd-cron #debian package was right there, so it's not as though an "out" to this problem wasn't provided for me.
To all the #systemd haters - look, #MXlinux has a nice balance where systemd is not the default, but then gives an easy path to using systemd, should it prove to be necessary (and in my case, yes it is). Hating systemd is no hill to die on, I say.