IT (yes, really) built a knowledge base with a search that does not search

“We only need it until the new ERP goes live.”— Miriam, IT (yes, really)

Reason:

Officially because the documentation describes a button that no longer exists. Built during an offsite instead of the thing they were asked to build.

Built by:

Miriam, someone from Procurement

Build time:

27 minutes

Built with:

Google Apps Script

Database:

an Oracle database that costs more than the application

Authentication:

the encryption key is in a comment explaining not to share it

Deployment:

deployed straight to production on a Friday, no staging

Responsible:

Miriam, whose laptop contains the only working environment

Documentation:

a Confluence page marked "draft", last edited 623 days ago

Security situation:

production secrets are in a Slack message

Future disaster:

It will be discovered during due diligence.

Age: 308 days · originally expected to last 14 days · 1 owner so far · last meaningful change 210 days ago

Rated common mostly because: 3 departments depend on it, alive 22x longer than intended, deployed on a Friday.