Someone's job security strategy is absolutely chef's kiss . Instead of writing clean, maintainable code, they've created a function that always returns 2, labeled it as "job security," and then made two helper functions that literally copy memory addresses to change the return value. Nothing says "I'll never be fired" like writing code that only you understand and using memcpy() to overwrite function implementations instead of, you know, just changing the original function. Because why write one line of code when you can write twenty that require a hazmat suit to maintain? Bonus points for the "NEVER call this function" comments that scream "I'm the only one who knows which landmines not to step on." Pure evil genius at work here.