Investor Relations built an internal app built because someone disliked one dropdown

“The API isn't documented.”— Marketing Manager

Reason:

Because it was faster to build it than to explain it to Head of Operations. With 476 users and zero documentation.

Built by:

Ravi, a working student

Build time:

one weekend

Built with:

Claude, and no idea about coding

Database:

a column called misc2 because misc was already taken

Authentication:

there is one account called "user"

Deployment:

running on an EC2 instance somebody resized manually

Responsible:

Tobias, whose laptop contains the only working environment

Documentation:

a screenshot of a photographed whiteboard

Security situation:

security is handled by the fact nobody knows it exists

Future disaster:

It will receive an innovation award.

Age: 5.7 years · originally expected to last 14 days · 3 owners so far · survived 2 reorganisations · last meaningful change 3 days ago

Rated common mostly because: alive 150x longer than intended, 2 departments depend on it, older than the department using it.