Alright, let’s talk about this ‘Miki Lee’ adventure. It wasn’t a person, not really, though sometimes it felt like dealing with the most stubborn individual you’ve ever met. It was this old system, this beast of a project that landed on my lap when I was just trying to keep my head above water.
I remember my first look at it. The boss, bless his cotton socks, said, “Just a quick tidy-up, get it running smoothly.” Smoothly! Ha! That was a good one. I poked around a bit, opened a few files, and my heart just sank. It was like looking at the inside of a tangled-up fishing net, but made of code and ancient hardware configs. Wires everywhere, docs? What docs? They were probably written on a napkin and lost in ’98.
So, how did I end up wrestling with Miki Lee?
Well, that’s a bit of a story. I’d just been let go from my previous gig. You know how it is, company “restructuring” – which usually means someone higher up wants a bigger bonus. So, there I was, suddenly out of work, rent due, and a kid who seemed to grow out of shoes every other week. Panic mode, big time. I was grabbing at any freelance work I could find, and this “Miki Lee” project popped up. The pay wasn’t great, but it was something. The client just wanted their old system, the one that handled their entire, ancient inventory, to limp along for another year or two. “It’s our Miki Lee,” they’d said fondly, “been with us for ages.” Yeah, and it showed.
So, I rolled up my sleeves. First thing I did was try to map it all out. I spent days, literally days, just tracing connections, trying to figure out what black box did what. It was a nightmare. There were parts so old, the original developers were probably retired or, you know, moved on to coding for the angels. I found comments in the code, actual comments, that were older than some of my t-shirts.
- First, I backed up everything. Twice. On three different devices. Paranoia is your best friend with these old systems.
- Then, I started documenting. I made my own diagrams, took photos of the physical setup, wrote down every little quirk I found.
- Tried to get one module working at a time. It was like playing Jenga with a live bomb. Fix one thing, two other things would break.
- Lots of coffee. And I mean, a lot of coffee. My kitchen started to look like a science experiment with all the empty mugs.
There were times I wanted to just throw my hands up and walk away. I’d stare at the screen, completely stumped, thinking, “This is it. This is the project that breaks me.” My wife was super supportive, though. She’d bring me tea and just listen to me rant about “Miki Lee’s” latest tantrum. Bless her.
Slowly, very slowly, I started making headway. I replaced a few critical failing components with some stuff I scavenged from eBay – finding parts was an adventure in itself. Rewrote some of the most fragile bits of code, piece by piece. It wasn’t pretty, mind you. My goal wasn’t to make it a modern marvel; it was to make it not explode when someone looked at it funny.
And you know what? After weeks of what felt like digital archaeology and surgery, I got it stable. Not perfect, not fast, but stable. The client was over the moon. For them, their “Miki Lee” was back from the brink. For me, it was a paycheck and a massive lesson in patience and just plain stubbornness. I learned more about ancient tech in those few weeks than in years of working on shiny new stuff. And honestly, there’s a weird satisfaction in taming something like that. So yeah, that was my Miki Lee. Never again, I hope. But also, kinda proud I did it.
