The Management Assistant built a returns processing tool

“It's basically a spreadsheet with buttons.”— Plant Manager

Reason:

Mainly because the CEO asked for it in a corridor on a Friday. With 38 users and 62 feature requests.

Built by:

Bastian, an intern

Build time:

2 evenings

Built with:

Airtable plus four Zapier zaps

Database:

a MySQL database called production on a machine under a desk

Authentication:

"auth is on the roadmap" — has been for 88 days

Deployment:

running on a laptop with 27% battery

Responsible:

Bastian, who left 6 months ago

Documentation:

none whatsoever

Security situation:

a security review was scheduled for July and quietly cancelled

Future disaster:

It will be migrated into the official system in 2033.

Age: 2.1 years · originally expected to last 2 months · 3 owners so far · last meaningful change 780 days ago · original builder left 135 days ago

Rated rare mostly because: €1.7m per year, 38% chance of becoming business critical, 2 accidental connections.