May 16, 2017 PALO ALTO - While conferring with a teammate on a minor issue, startup engineer Ethan Dunlap suddenly felt like a complete fool yesterday afternoon after observing up-close his coworker’s unnervingly magnificent coding environment. Dunlap, reportedly overwhelmed with awe and intense envy, attempted to remain outwardly stoic as he watched his deskmate effortlessly zip around and between various files as they nonchalantly discussed the matter at hand. The adept teammate also demonstrated some exceptionally slick terminal gymnastics, including a handful of masterpieces plucked from their epic .bashrc, which Dunlap suspected would make his own .bashrc appear utterly pathetic.

Dunlap also could not help but be inwardly humiliated by the sheer efficiency exhibited by his peer, who made a total mockery of his comparatively plodding pace. Throughout the entire conversation, the virtuoso colleague was completely unaware the degree to which Dunlap was silently burning with questions like, “What plugins are they using?”, “What was that program I just saw?”, and “How the hell did they just do that?” Feeling disgraced, the engineer trudged back to his desk once he could no longer bear the sight of his colleague flying around vim at an unholy pace. At press time, Dunlap had resumed work at his desk, but was still being constantly reminded by the loud clacks from his coworker’s mechanical keyboard just how few keystrokes it took them to do anything.

This article was originally published on AlwaysTrending, a fantastic (but archived) satire site by Matt Frisbie. Copied here with permission of the author.