Remote Developers: Social Distancing Since 2010
Description
A meme using the awkward handshake scene from the TV show 'The Office', featuring Michael Scott and his former boss Ed Truck. Ed Truck is labeled 'GOVERNMENT:' with the caption 'THANK YOU FOR STAYING HOME DURING CORONAVIRUS'. Michael Scott, looking uncomfortable with a mullet and a fanny pack, is labeled 'ME, REMOTE DEVELOPER'. The humor stems from the irony of the government thanking a remote developer for staying home, a practice that has been a standard part of their professional life long before the COVID-19 pandemic made it a global mandate. The developer's awkward acceptance of the handshake signifies the strange feeling of being praised for simply continuing their normal work routine, highlighting how the tech industry was already accustomed to the remote work culture that the rest of the world was suddenly forced to adopt
Comments
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I've been 'flattening the curve' of my social life for years. My reward? The rest of the world finally got on my level of asynchronous communication
Government: “Thanks for staying home.” Me: “Sure thing - I’ve been socially distanced since CVS; the only outbreak I’m tracking is log4j still festering in the monolith.”
The only time in history when "I haven't left my house in three weeks" went from a production incident post-mortem excuse to a civic duty
Remote developers during the pandemic: 'You merely adopted the home office. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn't see a physical office until I was already a senior engineer, and by then it was nothing to me but fluorescent lighting and pointless commutes.' While companies scrambled to set up VPNs and figure out Zoom, remote devs were already three years deep into their optimized home setup with mechanical keyboards, standing desks, and a carefully curated collection of houseplants for those video calls - finally getting recognition for a lifestyle choice that was previously met with skepticism about 'real work' happening outside the office
Government mandates WFH; remote devs smirk from clusters scaled across home basements since the Web 2.0 era
We feature-flagged the office off in 2012 - coffee is eventually consistent, meetings idempotent, and the only handshakes we do are TLS over a flaky VPN
The only handshake I accept is TLS 1.3 with mTLS - been remote since we strangled the monolith