Executive Office built a cost allocation model

“The admin page isn't linked anywhere.”— Head of Operations

Reason:

Allegedly because the meeting to fix it created 5 more meetings. Quietly rolled out to two countries.

Built by:

Bastian, a key account manager

Build time:

5 hours 44 minutes

Built with:

Replit, because deployment looked like one button

Database:

a SOAP service returning XML from 5 years ago

Authentication:

Jens knows the password

Deployment:

running in Kubernetes with one pod and no reason

Responsible:

Kevin, who only knows the database

Documentation:

an architecture diagram with 4 arrows labelled API

Security situation:

the admin URL contains the word secret

Future disaster:

It will still be running in 2034.

Age: 7.2 years · originally expected to last 3 weeks · 4 owners so far · survived 3 reorganisations · last meaningful change 3 days ago

Rated rare mostly because: 182 users, 50% chance of becoming business critical, alive 126x longer than intended.