How to behave when given a large project with undocumented code?

Question

Programming

For work, they gave a large project (under two tens of thousands of lines) with undocumented / uncommented code, while this is not a core project / language. I'm working on the web, and this is a desktop solution.
At the same time, they are waiting for the shortest possible time when performing a test task.
I dug into it for a couple of days, I realized that it would take quite a long time to figure it out.
What to do in such a situation?
The initial warning that this is not my specialization, and that nothing was clear to me there, did not work.

Answer 1

Rejoice that there is an opportunity to deal with something new, calm down, ignore inadequacy and adequately retort, for the hundredth time tell in detail that for such and such reasons the project will be carried out for a year or two. The main thing is not to sneak around, not to hide, to behave like a “blank slate”, so that all your motives can be understood without much straining. And talk about everything as soon as possible. It is better to quit with references and a smile at first than with scandal, sleep disturbances and remorse after 2 months.

Answer 2

play dead

Answer 3

Pinocchio signed himself once.

Answer 4

I would not take such a project for any money

Answer 5

If you were hired as a web developer, then you certainly don't have to be involved in this project.
If just as a programmer who does everything, then understand as much as you see fit. About the shortest time, I would not bathe :-)

Answer 6

Is it necessary to write from scratch? A project of 200k lines and you alone, I wonder how much is there for the project hanging? can find people of each of a certain range of activities that are difficult for you at the moment and it will be faster to make the first test show to the customer and the prepayment will drop for you, and people won’t take a lot of $ if you correctly divide all the work into pieces)