Finance built an AI chatbot for an undefined reason

“IT would have taken months.”— HR Generalist

Reason:

Officially because Headcount_new2.xlsx finally crashed at 09:31. With 151 users and zero documentation.

Built by:

Priya, an intern

Build time:

19 minutes

Built with:

plain HTML and 1,900 lines of jQuery

Database:

a Postgres database called main-new containing 1 years of production data

Authentication:

one shared password, written on a sticky note in the warehouse office

Deployment:

deployed 41 minutes before the builder went on holiday

Responsible:

an external agency with no contract on file

Documentation:

none whatsoever

Security situation:

the penetration test found it by accident

Future disaster:

It will silently stop syncing and nobody will notice for 6 months.

Age: 96 days · originally expected to last 14 days · 1 owner so far · survived 1 reorganisation · last meaningful change 74 days ago · original builder left 94 days ago

Rated legendary mostly because: €1.1m per year, 2 accidental connections, direct production access.