Stop using awk, use a real programming language+shell instead, with structured data instead of bytestream wrangling:

  > ls -l | get user

  ┌────┬──────┐
  │  0 │ cube │
  │  1 │ cube │
  │  2 │ cube │
  │  3 │ cube │
  │  4 │ cube │
  │  5 │ cube │
  │  6 │ cube │
  │  7 │ cube │
  │  8 │ cube │
  │  9 │ cube │
  │ 10 │ cube │
  │ 11 │ cube │
  │ 12 │ cube │
  │ 13 │ cube │
  │ 14 │ cube │
  │ 15 │ cube │
  └────┴──────┘

You don't need to memorize bad tools' quirks. You can just use good tools.

https://nushell.sh - try Nushell now! It's like PowerShell, if it was good.