Operations built a demo environment that became production

“We can always rebuild it.”— Group Controller

Reason:

Honestly? Because the fax machine is still somehow involved. With 103 users and 13 feature requests.

Built by:

Marco, a recruiter

Build time:

6 evenings

Built with:

a Rails app from 2016 nobody updated

Database:

UUIDs stored as VARCHAR(255), just in case

Authentication:

the security review was postponed until after launch

Deployment:

running on a laptop with 13% battery

Responsible:

Miriam and Daniel, who each think the other owns it

Documentation:

comments that say "do not change this"

Security situation:

there is one shared admin account

Future disaster:

It will be presented to management as evidence that shadow IT must stop.

Age: 40 days · originally expected to last 7 days · 1 owner so far · survived 1 reorganisation · last meaningful change 40 days ago

Rated common mostly because: 28 users, 1 accidental connections, €14k per year.