> Guess I'll be setting up a local git instance very soon...

The incorrectness of this highlights how useful DVCS can be — a git server going down doesn't affect working locally at all.

What if he needs to pull some changes he needs to continue with his work?

You can merge from anywhere, not just Github master. It's a little more work, but a coworker could share their repository without much difficulty. You can even apply patches sent over email, if you're so inclined.

All legitimate solutions, I agree. The thing is, it really sucks when this happens over the weekend. Alerting a colleague in their off-hours to be able to continue with your work is not ideal. Of course, it happens rarely, so you're making a good point. If it happened weekly, that would be another story. :)

Then a local git instance would preclude him from needing or receiving those changes anyway.

Hmm, I think we understood 'local' as two different things. I understood it as a self hosted git server, like on premises in parent's company that he and his colleagues would use. Now that you mentioned it, I'm starting to think I understood it wrong.

Nope, I may have misspoke, but I meant self-hosted git instance in the intranet.

Could have just connected your phone to data and tried it out.

A VPN is a button click away, and modem reboot is two clicks :) For me personally more convenient than tethering.