You ever try to get some cool dev swag? Stickers, t-shirts, maybe a notebook that makes you feel like a real hacker while you’re just writing TODO lists? Yeah, good luck.

First, you gotta jump through a thousand hoops. "Complete this 5-hour coding challenge!" "Sign up for our newsletter, then confirm via email, then sacrifice a goat under the next full moon!" And the worst part? Some of these companies ghost you harder than a bad Tinder date.

Google Cloud Arcade? Completed 10 challenges. No swag.
Hacktoberfest? Contributed to open-source. Shirt never arrived.
Random Twitter giveaway? Retweeted, liked, followed, tagged three friends. Crickets.

But the moment you don’t want swag? BAM—your mailbox is drowning in random recruiter postcards from companies you've never heard of.

And let’s talk about those "exclusive" ambassador programs. They dangle swag in front of you like a carrot, but guess what? The only people who get in are LinkedIn influencers who say "🚀 Keep learning! Stay hungry! Stay foolish!" 50 times a day.

At this point, I’d rather just pay $5 for a sticker pack than deal with all this nonsense. But no, these companies make it seem like getting a free T-shirt is harder than getting a job at FAANG.

Just give me my damn stickers!