I Get More Expensive Phones And Laptops Than My Siblings Because I "Program"

When someone asks my age, I don't give them a number—I just show them PS/2 ports. If they recognize these ancient keyboard and mouse connectors without Googling, we're from the same tech paleolithic era. These circular relics with their color-coded pins were the USB of the '90s, except they required perfect alignment and a small prayer to connect properly. Nothing says "I witnessed the dial-up apocalypse" quite like remembering to check which color goes where. Kids these days with their USB-C will never know the satisfaction of that perfect *click* when you finally got it right after three attempts.

That moment when you finally build your first gaming PC after years on console, and suddenly there's a portal to another dimension of configuration options. Look at Morty freaking out over all those settings! His brain is executing a panic.exe while Rick's just standing there like "Yeah, welcome to PC gaming, where the frame rates are uncapped and the graphics settings actually matter." Console gamers: "Press X to play." PC gamers: "Let me just tweak these 47 graphics settings, configure my RGB lighting, update 3 different drivers, and troubleshoot why my second monitor keeps flickering when I launch Steam."

The eternal bond between developers and their overheating machines! Your CPU fans are screaming at 7000 RPM while running Docker containers, VS Code, and Chrome with 47 Stack Overflow tabs, yet you refuse to close anything because "you might need it later." The laptop is practically melting through your desk, but hey—at least you're both hot stuff! Next step: coding on the balcony in December because your apartment's thermostat can't keep up with your debugging session.

Developers discovering that their subreddit has turned into a single-topic echo chamber about DDR5 RAM prices is like finding out your favorite coffee shop only serves one drink now. The Buzz Lightyear toys represent the endless stream of identical posts flooding the feed—each one thinking they're bringing groundbreaking news when they're just the 500th clone saying the exact same thing. Meanwhile, the rest of us are sitting here like "Yes, we get it, RAM is expensive. Can we please talk about something else now? Like how my code still doesn't work after I've stared at it for 6 hours?"

The classic "have you tried turning it off and on again?" approach has apparently made it to the operating room! When your code throws inexplicable errors, rebooting is your Hail Mary pass. When your patient flatlines... maybe try literally anything else first? The terrifying reality that the same troubleshooting logic we apply to our stubborn servers is being suggested for human bodies is peak programmer humor. Next they'll be suggesting to check if the patient is properly plugged in or needs a firmware update.

OMG, the IT department has LOST THEIR MINDS! They've stacked every network switch in the building into this absolute MONSTROSITY of a Christmas tree! The colorful ethernet cables are like garland, the star screensaver is the cherry on top, and the whole thing is one trip away from the most CATASTROPHIC network outage in history! Meanwhile, Santa's over here writing SQL queries to determine who's been naughty or nice. Honestly, this is what happens when you give network engineers holiday spirit and zero supervision. The database admin is probably having HEART PALPITATIONS right now!