This one’s from a few years ago — and I still think about it sometimes.

I had already left the company. My contract as an junior dev ended, we said our thank-yous, and I moved on. Nothing dramatic, just life. A few months later, I get a message from someone on the team: “Hey, remember that one bug we couldn’t figure out? Yeah… it’s still there. Want to take a look?”

So, sure. I come back on a short-term freelance basis. It’s just one bug, right?

Well, that’s what I thought.

The bug in question was buried in a tangle of outdated front-end code and “temporary” solutions that had somehow become permanent. You know how that goes. The kind of code where one fix breaks three other things and no one remembers why certain conditions are there in the first place.

Long story short — the best way to fix the issue was to refactor a few things. Then a few more. Then a whole module. Before I knew it, I was knee-deep in a partial rewrite. Nothing drastic, but enough to give the app a much-needed tune-up.

The best part? No one was mad about it. They were actually relieved. Turns out, everyone knew the front-end was held together with duct tape and wishes, but no one had the time to do anything about it.

Moral of the story? Sometimes, saying yes to “just a quick fix” turns into something bigger. But if you do it right — and keep your old team in the loop — it can be one of those rare, satisfying moments where everything improves a little more than expected.

And hey, I got paid to clean up my old code. Not a bad gig.