[TeMPOraL]

> I guess the equivalent would be a nurse going and taking a shift at another hospital.

You're looking at the wrong profession. A nurse can't "just" go and start nursing stuff. Programmers are like carpenters - they can just go and start building stuff for themselves, using the same tools and skills they use at work. Except they also have an industry-imposed, medicine-style continued learning requirement due to how fast the field keeps changing.