The Official Cloud Nimbus Reference Guide
“Because it’s got electrolytes”
Idiocracy (2006) is a film by Mike Judge. This page is a fan tribute. All movie content belongs to 20th Century Fox. We just quote it a lot.
Idiocracy exists in a constellation of genius. Here's the full map.
The one that predicted everything
An average Joe wakes up 500 years in the future to find he's the smartest person alive. Corporations run everything, crops are watered with sports drinks, and the President is a former wrestler. Basically a documentary at this point.
Directed & Written by Mike Judge • Co-written by Etan Cohen
The one about your last job
TPS reports, red staplers, "I believe you have my stapler," and the most relatable workplace comedy ever made. If you've ever had a case of the Mondays, this is your film.
Directed & Written by Mike Judge
The one about your current job
Pied Piper, middle-out compression, "this guy f***s," and the most accurate portrayal of startup culture ever filmed. Eerily similar to building a Salesforce managed package, actually.
Created by Mike Judge, John Altschuler & Dave Krinsky
Where it all started
"Huh huh, that was cool." The show that launched Mike Judge's career and proved that animation could be smart by being incredibly stupid. Also: King of the Hill (1997-2010) and Extract (2009).
Created by Mike Judge
Mike Judge is a software engineer turned filmmaker. He studied physics at UCSD, worked as an engineer at a defense contractor, and then made cartoons about the absurdity of work and technology. His entire filmography is basically a commentary on what happens when smart systems get run by people who don't understand them.
Sound familiar? We build software delivery systems. Our clients are trying to not become Idiocracy. Our Slack channel proves we're already halfway there. Mike Judge is our patron saint.
Real quotes from our Slack conversations. We are professionals.
“Brawndo the thirst mutilator / It's got electrolytes”
Joe misspelled "Brawndo" as "Brando" and told Glen to buy "Callahan Auto stock and Brando shares" after Glen posted a stock screenshot. Glen corrected him with the full Brawndo treatment.
Perfectly timed, organic setup from Joe's misspelling. Danny's "I've watched that movie an embarrassing amount of times" confirms it landed.
“You mean like from the toilet?”
Continuing the Brawndo bit after Joe suggested "I think we should put water on the crops instead of brawndo." The only appropriate response.
Chef's kiss callback. Joe set it up perfectly with the crops line. This is peak Idiocracy quoting.
“Brought to you by Carl's Jr.”
Used as a sign-off on multiple messages. "Glen what is going on with FNMA, brought to you by Carl's Jr." Also: "morning guys... thx. Brought to you by Carl's Jr." when requesting dashboard changes. The team's unofficial tagline for any business communication.
Loses points for repetition but gains them back because it became a genuine running bit. The FNMA stock crash + Carl's Jr. combo is actually hilarious.
“Make that an extra bigass fries”
Responding to Joe's Carl's Jr. reference. Couldn't think of an Idiocracy quote fast enough, so went with the classic Hardee's/Carl's Jr. order.
Self-admitted slow on the draw. Points for honesty. The meta-commentary of being too slow to quote Idiocracy is funnier than the quote itself.
“Stay out of Starbucks”
Said to Glen as a warning. A reference to the Starbucks scene in Idiocracy, where Starbucks has... diversified its service offerings considerably.
Only works if you know the movie. Danny probably spit out his coffee. Risky quote in a work channel.
“President Camacho and the cabinet”
"We'll need to get that reviewed by President Camacho and the cabinet of course" -- in response to discussing Salesforce deployment approvals. The perfect metaphor for enterprise change management.
Perfect landing. Using it for Salesforce deployment approvals is genuinely inspired. The casual "of course" at the end sells it.
“The Dr. Lexus Scene (YouTube link shared)”
Glen's self-proclaimed "favorite scene in the movie." Shared the YouTube link in chat. Danny responded: "I've watched that movie an embarrassing amount of times."
Sharing YouTube links is low-effort quoting. But picking your favorite scene and committing to it publicly shows dedication to the bit.
A rigorous, peer-reviewed assessment of collective movie-quoting ability
Got What Plants Crave
Strong recall, good timing, occasionally slow on the draw
Carl’s Jr. recurring bit is inspired; docked for misspelling Brawndo
The perfect appreciative audience. Every bit needs a Danny.
A curated phrasebook for the modern software professional. Integrate these into your daily standups, code reviews, and client calls.
“I like money.”Business
-- Frito Pendejo
When to use: For budget discussions, SOW negotiations, or anytime someone asks about project costs.
“Go away, 'batin!”Engineering
-- Frito Pendejo
When to use: When someone interrupts your deep work / flow state. The universal do-not-disturb signal.
“Welcome to Costco, I love you.”Business
-- Costco Greeter
When to use: For client onboarding emails, getting-started wizards, or any first-touch interaction.
“Why come you don't have a tattoo?”Engineering
-- Doctor
When to use: For code review comments on missing documentation, missing unit tests, or missing type annotations.
“I'm gonna mistrial my way outta here.”Engineering
-- Frito Pendejo
When to use: For abandoning a pull request that has gotten completely out of hand.
“It says on your chart that you're... not doing so good.”Engineering
-- Dr. Lexus
When to use: For bug reports, failed health checks, and Salesforce governor limit warnings.
“Your s***'s all retarded and you talk like a [nerd].”Engineering
-- Dr. Lexus (adapted for professional use)
When to use: For code reviews when the architecture is... creative. Use only with close colleagues who will laugh.
“Not Sure.”Business
-- Joe Bauers (his literal name in the future)
When to use: The protagonist's assigned name. Perfect for any requirements meeting where nobody can answer your questions. "Who owns this process?" "Not Sure."
“Ow, my balls!”Engineering
-- TV Show Host
When to use: For deployment failures, production incidents, and looking at the CI/CD pipeline after a force push.
“I know s***'s bad right now, with all that starving stuff...”Business
-- President Camacho
When to use: Opening line for any incident postmortem or sprint retrospective where things went sideways.
“Upgrayedd -- spelled thusly, with two D's, for a double dose of his pimping.”Engineering
-- Narrator
When to use: For version upgrades, package promotions, and release notes. "We're deploying Upgrayedd v0.114."
“Put your hand on that wall.”Engineering
-- Prison Guard
When to use: Onboarding a new developer to a legacy codebase. "Before you start, put your hand on that wall."
“Why do you keep trying to read that word? You a [nerd]?”Engineering
-- Prison Guard
When to use: When someone is trying to parse an incomprehensible error log, stack trace, or Salesforce debug output.
“You went to law school at Costco?”Business
-- Joe Bauers
When to use: For questionable Salesforce certifications, LinkedIn endorsements, or when someone says "I'm an expert in..."
“If you don't smoke Tarrlytons... F*** you!”Engineering
-- TV Advertisement
When to use: For strongly-worded technology recommendations. "If you don't use version control..."
“I got my law degree here... and I'm plenty smart.”Engineering
-- Frito's Lawyer
When to use: For defending architectural decisions in design reviews. Especially questionable ones.
“Man, I could really go for a Starbucks, you know?”Business
-- Frito Pendejo
When to use: For suggesting a team break during a long meeting. Best used when nobody knows the Starbucks reference.
“He's gonna fix everything.”Business
-- Cabinet Member (re: Not Sure)
When to use: When a new senior developer joins the team and everyone expects them to solve all tech debt in week one.
“Water? Like out the toilet?”Engineering
-- Secretary of State
When to use: When someone suggests using a simple, proven solution instead of the over-engineered one. "You want to use... a spreadsheet?"
“It's what plants crave!”Business
-- Everyone
When to use: The universal product pitch. Replace "plants" with "clients" and "electrolytes" with your feature. "Delivery Hub -- it's what clients crave!"
Key scenes formatted as screenplay. Written from memory -- not word-perfect transcripts, but faithful to the spirit of the film.
Fair use: commentary and criticism. All characters and dialogue belong to 20th Century Fox / Mike Judge.
A definitive mapping between the Idiocracy universe and our daily work. Use this as a Rosetta Stone for all internal communications.
It's got what plants crave. It's got electrolytes. Nobody can explain what electrolytes actually are, but everyone knows they need them. Similarly, nobody can fully explain what Delivery Hub does in one sentence, but once you use it, you can't stop.
The thing Brawndo has that makes it work. Nobody understands the mechanism, they just know it's essential. Our sync engine moves data between Salesforce orgs in real-time, and honestly, explaining how echo suppression and global source ID tracking works to a non-technical audience feels exactly like explaining electrolytes.
The place where you can buy everything, get a law degree, and apparently find love. The AppExchange is the same energy -- you go looking for a CPQ tool and come out with 14 trial installations and a managed package that sends you emails forever.
"F*** you, I'm eating." Carl's Jr. in the film is the corporate sponsor that owns everything, including child custody. At Large is the billing entity through which Glen invoices Mobilization Funding. Every invoice is, spiritually, brought to you by Carl's Jr.
Charismatic. Confident. Fires automatic weapons during presentations. Genuinely wants to solve problems but delegates everything to the smartest person in the room. Every enterprise client has a Camacho.
The average person who wakes up 500 years in the future and is suddenly the smartest person alive. This is every developer who joins a new project and realizes nobody else understands how any of it works.
The Costco time machine that put Joe into the future was a janky carnival ride that nobody expected to work. Your legacy Salesforce org is the same thing -- held together by workflow rules from 2014, process builders nobody can read, and a flow that does something, but nobody knows what.
Spelled thusly, with two D's, for a double dose of his pimping. When we promote a new beta package version, we are spiritually deploying an Upgrayedd -- it will find you, it will track you across orgs, and it absolutely will not give up.
In the film, Starbucks has expanded its menu considerably beyond coffee. Similarly, some Salesforce consulting partners have expanded their service definitions to include things that are... loosely related to their original expertise. We'll leave it there.
The most popular show in America. Everyone watches it. Nobody can look away. This is your CI/CD pipeline on a Friday afternoon deploy. You know it's going to hurt, but you check the logs anyway.
The garbage avalanche that destroys the city in the film's backstory. Your sprint backlog is the same -- years of accumulated items, feature requests, bugs, and "quick wins" that were never quick, all threatening to bury the team.
Bought the FDA and the FCC. Controls the food supply. Has replaced water everywhere. Salesforce acquired Slack, Tableau, MuleSoft, and basically everything else. The parallel writes itself.
Where they send you to get fixed. In practice, it just makes things worse. Much like a partial sandbox that's 6 months out of date and missing half the metadata.
Motivated entirely by money. Will help you but only if you pay him. Knows the system better than anyone but uses that knowledge exclusively for personal gain. Every team has worked with a Frito.
"Don't worry, scrote. There are plenty of 'tards out there living really kick-ass lives." The bedside manner of someone reading from a script who doesn't really understand the diagnosis but assures you it'll be fine. Have you tried clearing your cache?
Idiocracy is a 2006 film written and directed by Mike Judge, produced by Ternion Productions, and distributed by 20th Century Fox. All characters, dialogue, and story elements referenced on this page are the property of their respective owners. This page constitutes fan commentary and is protected under fair use. No affiliation with or endorsement by 20th Century Fox, Mike Judge, or any associated parties is claimed or implied.
Brought to you by Carl’s Jr.
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