Someone From Head Office built a customer onboarding checklist

“We'll put it on the roadmap.”— Plant Manager

Reason:

Allegedly because the source of truth depends on which department you ask. Forked from a tutorial at 16:05 and never cleaned up.

Built by:

Daniel, a field technician

Build time:

one weekend

Built with:

Replit, because deployment looked like one button

Database:

a MySQL database called main on a machine under a desk

Authentication:

the password policy requires one uppercase letter and optimism

Deployment:

running on port 8080 in production

Responsible:

Priya, until somebody notices

Documentation:

none, but the variable names are "pretty clear"

Security situation:

the audit log was disabled because the disk filled up

Future disaster:

It will eventually process €2,400 per month.

Age: 5.8 years · originally expected to last 2 months · 4 owners so far · survived 1 reorganisation · last meaningful change 420 days ago

Rated common mostly because: €479k per year, alive 35x longer than intended, older than the department using it.