Job posting: "Fast-paced and exciting!" Translation: You'll be trapped in a beige cubicle prison that makes solitary confinement look like a tropical vacation. The "excitement" is watching the same beige walls close in on you while you contemplate your life choices. The "fast pace" refers to how quickly your soul drains out of your body with each passing hour. That single monitor from 2007? That's your window to the world now. The thrilling phone calls? Probably just IT telling you to restart your computer. Again. The only thing moving fast here is your motivation—straight out the door.

You know you're in deep when someone asks about that random if (count > 37) sitting in the codebase like an ancient artifact. "Historical reasons" is developer-speak for "I have absolutely no idea why this exists, the person who wrote it left the company 5 years ago, and I'm too terrified to touch it because production hasn't exploded yet." That nervous side-eye says it all. Why 37? Why not 36 or 38? Was it a business requirement? A bug fix? Someone's lucky number? The universe may never know. The comment "nobody knows why 37" is both brutally honest and professionally devastating. It's the coding equivalent of archaeological mystery—except instead of ancient civilizations, it's just Dave from 2015 who didn't believe in documentation. Pro tip: If you ever find yourself writing code with magic numbers, leave a comment. Future you (or the poor soul who inherits your code) will thank you. Or at least won't curse your name during 3 AM debugging sessions.