Hide Easter Eggs in your code

In my first program we had a secure file deletion feature

I was tasked of the Mac OS version

While windows version had an icon for drag and drop with a document in a trash bin, in my version when you selected different safety options, it changed icons

Basic deletion had the bin

Intermediate deletion had a document grinder

Advanced deletion had a burning file icon

I was very proud of myself

I did this at my previous job. Lots of in-jokes, or little things to make you smile (like changing button text when posting long customer support messages), and lots of little hidden things like subtle css animations that would only run every so often. I also added a few that ran every 8-20 minutes so they just might catch your eye every few weeks. A few others required interaction, like clicking on a section title so many times would change the text to a train that would choo-choo by, then change back. I had a lot of fun with it, and so did everyone else. There are probably a few that people still haven’t found. :) I really miss that job.

I also made the anti-skiddie code screw with them a bit by returning random payloads and status codes for most API endpoints until their IP was unbanned. Or 308 permanent redirects to FOAAS (fuck off as a service) if they kept it up. Boss had a good laugh at that.

By contrast…
At my current job: an easter egg, no matter what kind or how innocent, gets you a stern talking-to about how nobody finds that amusing, or how it’s a waste of time and reflects poorly on your performance. Unless you’re a “legendary” (utmost inner circle) dev, in which case everyone loves it no matter what and praises them for being oh so clever, and sometimes during the all-hands meetings, too. Freaking garbage heap of a company.

Was also tasked with creating icons for deletion. But ended up with a file in a trash can doing 😭

Icon suggestion for expert deletion:
The mushroom cloud.

This actually just sounds like a nice extra feature not an Easter egg. It visually tells you what type of action you are going to take

I like the good old "craft beers name based test parameters" for unittests.