I'm a senior IT type. My work laptop is Debian.

We like good pastries, coffee, good booze and feeling appreciated. Go make friends with the senior IT types and the help desk manager. Trust me it's with it.

Also...

1. everything is changeable. But not everything should be changed.
2. There will come a time when you need to interact with the command line. This is expected, and no you did not do something wrong.
3. Have fun.

Oh if your looking for a distro? Mint is a great entry point (and even can support crusty old graybeards as well).

Fair. And short of someone publishing a study I doubt we will ever know what the best entry point is. So, advocate the atomic distros, I'll advocate the crusty old dinosaur that moves (slightly) faster then molasses. And someone else reading this thread can recommend one of the rolling distros. At the end of the day to me the importance bit is that someone is interested in Linux as a whole.

Also a lot harder to wrap your head around atomic distros when your first playing with Linux. Windows > a traditional distro (even arch) is a lot more similar then making the switch to an immutable distro.

And to be clear. I'm not going to say Debian is not without it's flaws. It is the system you choose if all you care about is stability. Case in point, I work with Linux day in and day out for my job, the absolute last thing I want to do is tinker with my laptop when I'm not at work - so I picked Debian. For me, the absolute stability is the most important thing - for others the fact that software can come preconfigured or is just old will be deal breakers.

As for Ubuntu vs Debian - ultimately they are similar. However Ubuntu has made some (IMO) choices I dislike (eg snaps).

It's a different family then what you have been playing with, but if you want "just works and not fancy" - Debian.

It won't have the latest and greatest software (security patches sure but nothing else). You trade that for stability.

It takes 5 mins to install and a few weeks to get comfortable using it. Then you wonder how you ever lived without it.

Let us know the following

If ping works for: localhost, your gateway, 1.1.1.1, google.com.

The contents of your /etc/resolve.conf

If you have a tun0 interface (ifconfig or ip a)

You said you uninstalled tailscale. Are there any running process or active systemd units laying around?

I've found there are two types of "leaders". One are the people you describe, the others are knowledgeable staff who somehow ended up in management at one point and realized they had to stay less the idiots take over.

One also calls themselves "thought leaders" while the other group is still working at 8pm.