Anyway, update on what happened today.
Today was an office day, I went to the office. Then suddenly got a call: the main application, that tens of thousands of users use, was slowing down. It took 7-8 seconds to load, when it should have taken 2-3 seconds. That doesn’t sound like much, but it is.
So I checked the network tab, and saw that there was one GET call (GetAllOperations), after which there was a 4-5 second gap before the rest of the actions continued. So I looked into it, and saw that there was a lot of work happening after that call, which we assumed might be what’s taking so long. The rest of the action chain was basically about doing a few things: assigning the payload to the proper variables, then removing invalid or deprecated operations, then removing panel operations (for reasons), as well as removing duplicates.
Well, naturally, I copy-pasted the code to ChatGPT. It took the code, optimised it, and spat out some more code. I pasted it in, and voila! Problem fixed!
Except for some reason my senior (who has 18 years of experience) didn’t take it. He went ahead with some other changes (he said it wasn’t a good idea to just copy-paste from ChatGPT – I agree but I validated the code). I said “whatever” and left it at that, though I kept a backup of that code just in case. Later, our manager called and said the guy’s changes didn’t do anything, the slow loading is still happening.
So then we got into a call, and I explained the matter again. This time, that guy was sharing his screen, so I got the chance to share him my code (or I guess ChatGPT’s if we’re being fair). He pasted that, and suddenly it fixed everything!
Except, that guy didn’t stop there. He went over and over, testing every aspect of that code, and he found one issue: the code wasn’t removing the panel operations. The manager said to him “if the only problem is that the panel operations are visible, then keep it.” But this guy ignored the manager, and spent like 30 minutes trying to fix the code.
Manager: “the users start their work at 3:30 PM IST, what are you doing?”
Senior: “I’m trying to fix the issue with the panel operations.”
Manager: “Are there any other issues?”
Senior: “No, just this one.”
Manager: *sighs* “I already told you we can go ahead with the deployment, that’s not that big a deal, Senior.”
Senior: “Sorry, I was gone for a while and didn’t hear.”
Manager: “I told you after you came back. What are you doing, man? You wasted 7 minutes.”
I laughed. This guy’s a bit like this. I’d show him my code because something’s not working, but he’d start poking at the CSS and “why is this variable not named this”? This happens even when we’re on a deadline. He once broke prod because he wasted a day fixing the CSS instead of actually working on the logic.
I feel bad for him, but this time it was funny.
my gf grew up when the internet was born. that sounds like you’d complain about the ‘good old days’ together if you guys ever met loool
