If You Please Consult The Graphs

The developer wants to modernize their ancient Java codebase, but management is having absolutely none of it. The Product Manager and Engineering Director stand there with that classic "not happening" expression while the dev drowns in Oracle swag and enterprise Java paraphernalia. The irony is beautiful: surrounded by Spring Boot, Gradle, IntelliJ, and Java 21 LTS posters—all modern tools that could actually help—but the desk tells the real story. Duke's Choice Award mug, conference tote bags, Enterprise Java Server boxes stacked like ancient artifacts. The developer's wearing an Oracle badge and sitting at what's basically a shrine to enterprise Java circa 2008. That "Duke's Choice Award" mug is chef's kiss. Nothing says "we're stuck in the past" quite like proudly displaying awards from Java conferences that happened when smartphones were still a novelty. Management sees all that Oracle investment and thinks "if it ain't broke, don't refactor it"—ignoring that the monolith is held together by XML config files and prayers.