The Management Assistant built a performance review form

“It's just a form.”— Plant Manager

Reason:

Because the last 10% is authentication, billing and everything else. Started as Budget2026_v2.xlsx with a script attached.

Built by:

Nadia, an intern

Build time:

an afternoon, mostly

Built with:

WordPress with eleven plugins

Database:

the old database because migration is scheduled for Q3

Authentication:

the password is "Password1!" because it meets the policy

Deployment:

hosted on a server shared with 11 unrelated applications

Responsible:

a steering committee that has not met in 4 months

Documentation:

an Excel tab called Instructions

Security situation:

the audit log is console.log

Future disaster:

It will discover the backup password left with Ravi.

Age: 2.0 years · originally expected to last 3 months · 6 owners so far · survived 1 reorganisation · last meaningful change 3 days ago

Rated common mostly because: 23% chance of becoming business critical, alive 8x longer than intended, 1 departments depend on it.