Indika was reviewing comments on her pull request when her boss, Bill, approached her. Bill admonished her for submitting the pull request, stating it was against team policy. He insisted she had not read the developer guide. Indika had read the company-wide guide, but Bill had his own separate guide for his team that he never shared. This guide prohibited branching and merging, advocating for direct commits to the main branch. Indika confirmed with a coworker, Elise, that this policy was indeed real. Elise explained that the team avoided branching and pull requests when Bill was around but used them otherwise to maintain good practices. Weeks later, Indika asked Bill about his policy on branching during a private moment. Bill explained his rationale, stemming from years of experience, arguing that branches create conflicts and stale code. He believed they were unnecessary for internal teams, likening them to developers being distracted by new shiny toys. Indika, contemplating his words, looked out at squirrels playing in tree branches.