Quick Call With Manager

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.

Behold, the modern developer in their natural habitat! This isn't just coding—it's vibe coding . Who needs security best practices when you can just commit API keys directly to GitHub? It's like hiding your house key under the doormat, except the doormat is indexed by Google. Documentation? Tests? Please. Those are for developers who don't name their variables with the perfect aesthetic. Why write tests when you can spend three hours curating the perfect lo-fi playlist that you'll listen to while not writing tests? The true art form isn't solving problems—it's creating new PRs to fix your previous PRs while your IDE looks absolutely fabulous with that custom theme you spent a day configuring. And when everything is literally on fire? That's the perfect time to update your GitHub profile README. Priorities, people!

The cybersecurity guy who just implemented 27 new password policies, blocked your favorite debugging tools as "security risks," and forced you to switch to a VPN that disconnects every 15 minutes. Meanwhile your actual work takes 3x longer now, but hey—at least nobody can hack the system that nobody can use! The cherry on top? That smug "No need to thank me" attitude while developers contemplate whether prison time for strangling the security team would be worth it.

That moment when your soul leaves your body because your production app is calling a QA environment. The cat's face perfectly captures that special blend of terror, disbelief, and "I'm definitely getting fired today" that hits when you realize your carefully deployed app is about to bring down the entire system because it's pointing at a test backend. Nothing quite says "professional software engineer" like frantically SSH-ing into production servers at 2 AM while your boss's phone is lighting up with alerts. Just another day in paradise!

Ah, the classic corporate tech hostage situation. You're hired as a developer, yet somehow expected to code with nothing but Notepad and prayers. The IT department—those mystical gatekeepers of admin privileges—stand between you and basic functionality like Docker, VS Code, and PostgreSQL. Meanwhile, you're sitting there like a carpenter who's been handed a banana instead of a hammer, screaming internally "I HAVE TO HAVE MY TOOLS!!!" while submitting your 17th ticket to install npm. Nothing quite captures the absurdity of modern software development like needing permission to do the job they're paying you for. Fun fact: The average developer spends approximately 84 years of their career waiting for IT to approve software installations. I might have made that up, but it certainly feels true.

Meet the star player of every production release: Amillion Buggs, jersey number 20, playing for the MULES, position: Guard, height: 6'4". The ultimate defensive specialist who somehow always slips past your QA team. That moment when you push to prod and suddenly your codebase has a new starting lineup of unexpected "features." No matter how many tests you write, Amillion Buggs always makes the roster. And just like a good guard, these bugs are excellent at blocking your weekend plans.