Reject Algorithms Return To Monke

When the interviewer asks you to write a loop but you've been optimizing code since the Pentium era. Why waste precious CPU cycles on branch prediction and loop overhead when you can just manually unroll that bad boy? Sure, it looks like you're writing code with your face, but technically you're just doing the compiler's job for it. Modern problems require ancient solutions that haven't been relevant since 1997. Your interviewer is either going to hire you immediately or quietly escort you from the building. No middle ground.

The expectation: "I'll code by intuition and feeling, letting my creativity flow." The reality: Your brain on fire, frantically computing a thousand wrong answers per second while basic math equations mock you from the background. Nothing says "senior developer" like confidently writing 200 lines of code only to be defeated by 5+6=9 . It's not a bug, it's a feature of the human condition.

Ah, the magical transformation that happens when someone glances at your monitor! One second you're crafting cryptic pointer arithmetic that would make Linus Torvalds weep with joy, and the next you're writing the programming equivalent of "See Spot Run." The code suddenly becomes so simple it's practically insulting - a glorified boolean return that a toddler could debug. It's like your brain enters panic mode: "ABORT COMPLEX ALGORITHMS! HUMAN DETECTED! QUICK, LOOK COMPETENT BUT NOT TOO COMPETENT!" And suddenly you're writing code that screams "I definitely know what I'm doing" while simultaneously hiding the digital chaos you were just reveling in. The irony? That simple if-else statement probably took more mental energy than the pointer voodoo you were happily writing before someone invaded your sacred coding bubble.

You're sitting there proud of yourself for using a debugger and waiting a whole 60 seconds for your IDE to boot up, thinking you're doing pretty well. Then you look at the leaderboard and realize you're competing against: • A guy who's literally on Adderall speedrunning problems with pre-written scripts • Someone doing APL puzzles on a System/360 emulator for fun (their HTML 2.0 compliant homepage confirms they're clinically insane) • An Eastern European dev making $200k who types faster than your brain can process thoughts • A Linux kernel hacker golfing in languages that sound like Lovecraftian incantations and measuring performance in clock cycles • A Chinese prodigy who's been institutionalized since age 3 and needs a PhD in discrete math just to understand their solutions • And finally, the most terrifying of all: an IT support guy forced to solve everything in Excel VBA who somehow channels the collective knowledge of every Indian educational YouTuber ever Competitive programming: where your imposter syndrome gets imposter syndrome.

When your junior dev asks "What's the modulo operator?" and you're too deep into your fifth coffee to explain basic math. Nothing says "I'm a professional" like hardcoding 50 if-statements to check if a number is even when return number % 2 == 0; would do the trick. But hey, at least it's thoroughly tested for numbers 1-22! The face in the corner is all of us reviewing this code during a PR. Silent horror.

Whoever designed this playground equipment clearly graduated from the same school as developers who write while True: with no exit condition. Just picture a bunch of exhausted kids pedaling in circles for eternity because nobody thought to add a break statement. The CPU of childhood joy running at 100% until snack time interrupts the process.