It infrastructure Memes

The sacred commandment of tech support, embodied in physical form. That network switch has clearly been through several apocalypses, covered in dust, cobwebs, and what might be the remnants of ancient civilizations. Yet somehow, against all odds, those tangled Ethernet cables are still delivering packets. This is the production environment equivalent of balancing your entire infrastructure on a house of cards built by an intern who left six years ago. No documentation, no backups, just a prayer and that one guy who refuses to take vacations because "the system might notice he's gone." Cleaning it would be the responsible thing to do. Replacing it would be the correct thing to do. But touching it? That's how you become the person who took down the entire company because "it was dusty."

That network switch has clearly been running flawlessly since the Clinton administration. Covered in dust, cobwebs, and what appears to be ancient plaster, it's the digital equivalent of that one load-bearing piece of code written by someone who left the company 8 years ago. Touch it? Might as well pull the pin on a grenade while you're at it. This is why network engineers develop that thousand-yard stare by year five.