PSA: I learned the hard way about grain direction on drawer fronts

I've been building cabinets for about 8 years now, mostly in my shop outside Portland. Last month I finished a set of kitchen drawers for a client and noticed the wood kept looking weird after I sanded it. Just kind of fuzzy and uneven no matter how much I smoothed it out. Turns out I had been ignoring the grain direction on my figured maple for years. I was just gluing up panels without thinking about which way the grain was going. An old timer came by my shop to borrow a biscuit joiner and he called me out on it right away. He pointed to a drawer front I had just finished and said "that's why you're fighting your sandpaper." I felt pretty dumb but now I check every piece before I cut. Has anyone else had a moment where a simple thing like grain direction hit you in the face after years of doing it wrong?