systemd, annoying since 2010

the problem
The latest in systemd annoyances is during start-up or shutdown.

A start-job is running for....[some shiat]

However added to this will be a counter with

12 secs/no limit

meaning you have to sit there and watch the seconds tick past with no idea when the thing is going to time out, or IF it will time out. So much for a fast boot or expeditious shut-down.

Some investigation shows this is commonly fixed in either

/etc/systemd/system.conf
/etc/systemd/user.conf

But here's the kludge. You go into /etc/systemd/user.conf and this points to yet further information

# You can override the directives in this file by creating files in
# /etc/systemd/user.conf.d/*.conf.

Override the overrides. Can you imagine? No wonder sites like
this one exist.

politics
I never understood the problems with udev, but it's unsurprising to me that systemd was developed at RedHat, which seems to attempt to proprietize various Linux features, perhaps to benefit their Linux support schemes, or to attempt misguided "improvements" to the Linux OS, for who knows what reason(s).