Well as it so happens the engineer decide to do some magic to the code. So what I've written wasn't being run as a script but instead being mutilated by his processes and then eval'd. Yeah! :)

Anyway, what was basically going on was that he was chucking a bunch of information in the code to 'massage' it how he needed it to work so that variables could then be exported to all sorts of other places.

Yes this is weird, yes this is definitely not how I'd have even imagined to do it, and yes from now on when I need something fixed in the code I think I'll let him do it and let him have his silly job security.

At least I can safely know that I'm not loosing my mind and forgetting how to program... phew!