Feels stupid even taking the time to write this down, but back in 1992 or so I was on a work-placement in the UK, from Sixth-Form. I was placed in a British Ra

Feels stupid even taking the time to write this down, but back in 1992 or so I was on a work-placement in the UK, from Sixth-Form. I was placed in a British Rail office, where people were writing code to do things I don't think were ever explained to me. My "job" seemed to be to make tea/coffee and pretend to understand things people barely explained. There was lots of head-nodding, and similar. Over the course of casual conversation it became apparent that one of the developers machines took significantly longer to compile the code-base than their colleagues. I pressed the "turbo" button. The speed increased. People were happy. That was my sole memorable contribution in the two-week placement. That and an overriding belief that wearing a tie in a development environment felt pointless.