Someone From Head Office built an expense approval portal

“The quarter ends Friday.”— Marco, Someone From Head Office

Reason:

Mainly because somebody watched a 41 minute tutorial. Started as Budget2026_old_old.xlsm with a script attached.

Built by:

Marco, a warehouse supervisor

Build time:

a long Thursday

Built with:

Lovable, and a pinch of optimism

Database:

a JSON file in production

Authentication:

the password manager is memory

Deployment:

deployed on Tuesday immediately before a public holiday

Responsible:

Ravi, whose laptop contains the only working environment

Documentation:

one README with 5 TODOs

Security situation:

the cookie banner is the security feature

Future disaster:

It will be migrated into the official system in 2031.

Age: 5.8 years · originally expected to last 2 months · 1 owner so far · survived 1 reorganisation · last meaningful change 19 days ago

Rated common mostly because: 48 users, alive 35x longer than intended, older than the department using it.