They Blocked GitHub at Work. So I Brought My Own Internet.
It started on a Monday.
The kind of Monday that already smelled like KPIs and unfinished JIRA tickets.
I opened my browser to pull a repo… and GitHub didn’t load.
I refreshed.
Nothing.
“Huh?”
I tried VS Code’s Git integration. Error.
I pinged github.com. Timeout.
I thought it was my laptop switched on and off Wi-Fi.
Still dead.
Then it hit me.
They blocked GitHub.
Not just GitHub.
NPM was choking.
Docker pulls were failing.
Even ChatGPT was acting like I was on a guest network at a Nigerian wedding.
“Dev tools… dey blocked am.”
Meanwhile, Teams was working fine.
Of course.
Outlook ? Clear like holy water.
SharePoint? Thriving.
But try to push a commit? Boom network policy violation.
Apparently some people in “IT Security” decided devs were too “distracted”
Too many open-source sites.
Too many tools they didn’t understand.
So the solution?
Block everything useful.
No announcement.
No discussion.
Just vibes and sabotage.
Now here’s where Past Me comes in clutch.
Because I’d already set up Tailscale on my personal VPS.
Originally it was just for SSH and a few private projects.
But now?
It became my exit node to freedom.
🚪 The Great Escape Plan
On my office laptop (yes, the restricted one), I already had Tailscale installed from months ago.
All I had to do was open a terminal and run:
tailscale up --exit-node=my-vps-ip
Boom.
In seconds, every packet I sent was bouncing off my personal VPS in Germany.
No more DNS filtering.
No more port restrictions.
No more “This website is blocked by your administrator.”
VS Code could fetch my Git repos.
Docker pulled images like nothing happened.
NPM was npm-ing.
Even GitHub Copilot came back to life like Lazarus.
I was free.
And IT had no clue.
Lessons I Learned That Day:
Corporates will block your tools and still ask why you missed your deadline
Network engineers are one mood swing away from digital oppression
Tailscale is not just for remote access it’s for survival
Pro Tip: Always Have Your Own Internet
Set up a $5/month VPS.
Install Tailscale.
Enable --advertise-exit-node.
Sleep well.
Because when the office Wi-Fi turns on you,
you need your own plan B.
Your dev flow should not depend on some uncle in IT who thinks GitHub is a dating site.
I didn’t argue.
I didn’t beg.
I just tunneled out like Shawshank Redemption.
And by Friday, when the rest of the team still couldn’t pull their repos…
I had deployed two microservices, updated the CI, and left at 3PM.