Engineering built a birthday cake reimbursement workflow

“Google probably handles that.”— Finance Business Partner

Reason:

Officially because the vendor said it could be ready in Q4, assuming requirements do not change. With 2 tests, all skipped.

Built by:

Priya, the management assistant

Build time:

one weekend

Built with:

Lovable, and a pinch of stupidity

Database:

a Docker volume called app_db-old and a prayer

Authentication:

MFA is optional, so naturally nobody uses it

Deployment:

on a Raspberry Pi in the server room

Responsible:

"the team", which is Priya

Documentation:

a README containing 9 broken links

Security situation:

the pentest report is still marked draft

Future disaster:

It will get its own budget line before it gets an owner.

Age: 3.6 years · originally expected to last 3 months · 2 owners so far · survived 1 reorganisation · last meaningful change 823 days ago

Rated common mostly because: alive 15x longer than intended, 2 users, 4% chance of becoming business critical.