Finally, another picture post! In the programming and web development community, there are at least two different popular variations of memes about Baristas. Here’s the one that “I’d rather do her job” said simultaneously both by a Barista and by a customer working on a laptop as a freelance developer.

I’d rather do her Job


Disclaimer: all images in this post were generated using AI, hopefully not ripping an unknown artist?

The struggle is real though. Serious discussions, carrer choices, coaching and therapy sessions eveolved around wether to stay in a job or learn something new. According to popular clichés, developers were lazy hipsters hanging around in cafés and coworking spaces with their laptops, or, more secretively in dark rooms wearing dark hoodies staring at colorful code lines on at least three gigantic monitors. According to popular clichés, those guys and girls earn a lot of money. Many of them do, but not all of the time, and not that easily, and many of us do have to get up early to report on our problems and progress in daily status meetings as early as 8 a.m. in the morning, depending on coroporate culture. Those are luxury problems, I know.

I wouldn’t want to work as a barista instead, but I know people who do. I talked to a coworker who’d rather be a blacksmith if not for the meagre pay, and another one actually quit coding and became a professional dancing teacher. I know of people working part-time as a barista, saving for bootcamps or apprenticeships aspiring for a career as a developer.

Here is the original meme as an AI-adapted abstract cartoon and a “90 days later” sequel.

Baristas becoming Developers and Vice Versa

The real issue that your boot camp knowledge as a junior web developer will not get you very far if everyone else had the same idea.

Enter AI. AI can code. AI is blamed for layoffs and lack of junior positions.

Will AI take all of our jobs?

No, it won’t.

AI doesn’t live up to its promise. You can’t expect to obtain perfect AI output without making an effort. You can’t expect perfect output even if you do. AI is initially flawed an there will always be an upredictable random aspect, and coincidence makes people superstitious. Self-taught “AI experts” and “vibe coders” are ridiculed by real experts for offering services that shouldn’t exist. Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot and their countless variations were designed to be used by common people without needing a tech-savvy expert. That’s why a “prompt engineer” shouldn’t exist at all.

Prompt Engineering

AI image generation has come a long way already. On a lucky day, ChatGPT or Gemini will create images for you that you couldn’t do better. On a very lucky day, they might even match your description. I used a set of drawings, photography, and AI-generated cartoons as a sample to guide AI and make it produce meme cartoons that avoid the typical stereotypes of bearded male white California dudes and American tech bros. This is my take on prompt engineering. Credits are due to Erik Dietrich’s text about “the great commoditizer” where I found the original prompt engineering idea and to unknown artists and stock image models that hopefully got paid for their initial work that the AI was trained on.

Now have a look at the last cartoons below.

Unfunny AI Memes

It’s not even funny! Compare this American cliché cartoon featuring an overconfident shiny robot and a grumpy white developer guy to the Barista style comic featuring the same more modern characters that also starred in the initial Barista meme on top. I previously published all images in Meme Monday threads and in eleborated articles about AI’s ethical implications and possible alternatives in my other blog on DEV.to which is more focused on tech and still seems to reach a bigger audience than the Open Mind Culture website.

DEV’s AI image generator is based on Google’s Nano Banana engine, but adds a retrofuturistic preset with neon pink and aqua colors and 1980s style devices and decoration. Adding a specific prompt on top to strive for more diverse characters, we’re still using unfair technology prone to reproducing stereotypes and biting original artists without giving credit. In a way, I remind myself of the South Park “flag war” episode. Consequentially, this will be one of my last experiements with AI image generation so far.

Further Reading