What Went Right (Nothing Went Wrong)

Junior developer naively asks where the documentation is, only to be met with the team lead's menacing stare and declaration: "I AM DOCUMENTATION." The unspoken reality of tribal knowledge strikes again. The code base is a mystery wrapped in an enigma, passed down through oral tradition like ancient folklore. Documentation exists solely in the minds of those who've survived long enough to remember why that one function needs a random sleep(3) call.

The evolution of a developer's brain during code reviews is truly a spectacle to behold. First, there's the primitive defensive response: "What, why?" - the intellectual equivalent of a caveman discovering fire and being terrified. Then comes the middle-evolution stage: "It's not my code, I'm just adding this feature but I'll totally refactor it later don't even worry about it" - the classic "temporary" solution that will outlive the heat death of the universe. The promise to refactor is the programming equivalent of "I'll start my diet on Monday." Finally, enlightenment: "Yeah, I know." The transcendent state where you've accepted your code is indeed garbage, but you've made peace with it. This is peak developer nirvana - when you stop fighting reality and embrace the beautiful dumpster fire you've created.

The perfect indie dev symbiosis – one calm producer who's mastered the art of corporate-speak and PowerPoint presentations, tethered to a feral developer who's spent years harnessing pure chaos into functional code. It's like watching a trained animal handler at the zoo, except the dangerous animal is the one actually building your product. The producer's on a leash not for the dev's safety, but to prevent them from escaping back to their natural habitat of 4 AM coding sessions fueled by energy drinks and spite. The greatest indie games weren't created by well-adjusted people with healthy work-life balances – they were birthed by this exact chaotic duo, held together by deadlines and the shared delusion that they'll "definitely make it big this time."

Ah, the mythical "quick recruitment process" – right up there with unicorns and bug-free code. That endless Snake Way from Dragon Ball Z perfectly captures the soul-crushing journey of tech hiring. "Just two more interviews" they say, as you complete your 7th technical assessment and prepare for your 12th "culture fit" call. Meanwhile, your IDE gathers dust and three JavaScript frameworks have already gone obsolete. The real superpower isn't flying or energy blasts – it's maintaining your sanity while HR keeps "circling back" with "updates" that somehow extend the timeline by another month.

A street sign that says "NO REBASE" with a symbol prohibiting two cars from being on top of each other. The perfect metaphor for Git workflows where rebasing is forbidden and merging is the only acceptable way to integrate changes. That senior dev who set up the repo rules is probably the same person who put up this sign. Both will fight you to the death if you try to maintain a clean commit history.

Behold, corporate problem-solving at its finest. One developer in a hole actually doing the work while eight people stand around "supervising." The two project managers are probably discussing which Jira board to create while the "analysts" (air quotes required) prepare PowerPoints about the hole. Meanwhile, the designer is concerned about whether the dirt pile has proper user affordances. The customer liaison is just there to say "the client wants it deeper" every 15 minutes.