Facility Services built a debt collection dashboard

“The AI understands the code.”— Kevin, Facility Services

Reason:

Officially because the workflow has 103 steps and nobody wants to open it. Copied to production via floppy disks.

Built by:

Kevin, a controller

Build time:

4 evenings

Built with:

a Slack bot doing database writes

Database:

a column called do_not_use that is required

Authentication:

JWT validation checks that the token looks like a JWT

Deployment:

running on a laptop with 17% battery

Responsible:

IT Service Desk, who delegated it to somebody who left

Documentation:

a Word document called Headcount_final.xlsm

Security situation:

security is handled by the fact nobody knows it exists

Future disaster:

It will be discovered during due diligence.

Age: 2.2 years · originally expected to last 3 weeks · 1 owner so far · survived 1 reorganisation · last meaningful change 420 days ago · original builder left 354 days ago

Rated common mostly because: 2 accidental connections, alive 37x longer than intended, the builder has left.