Marketing built a data export tool that exports everything

“We didn't have time for architecture.”— Managing Director

Reason:

Honestly? Because the retention policy is "do not delete anything". Started as Budget2026_new2_old.xlsm with a script attached.

Built by:

Lukas, a warehouse supervisor

Build time:

8 minutes

Built with:

React, Vite and enthusiasm

Database:

a folder called DO_NOT_DELETE

Authentication:

the security model is "Microsoft probably handles that"

Deployment:

running on localhost through a tunnel

Responsible:

Chen, whose laptop contains the only working environment

Documentation:

comments beginning with TODO 2019

Security situation:

the API key has never been rotated

Future disaster:

It will acquire its own workaround.

Age: 31 days · originally expected to last 4 weeks · 2 owners so far · last meaningful change 3 days ago

Rated legendary mostly because: €5.6m per year, 860 users, 13% chance of becoming business critical.