An intern built a certification expiry alerter

“We don't store credit cards.”— Nadia, An intern

Reason:

Because the correct dropdown option is "Other". Started as Invoices_Q3_new2_backup.xlsx with a script attached.

Built by:

Nadia, a key account manager

Build time:

one weekend

Built with:

an Electron app, for a form

Database:

a CSV that gets overwritten every Friday

Authentication:

permissions are managed in a spreadsheet

Deployment:

deployed into production because staging was broken

Responsible:

Anja, who has never seen the source code

Documentation:

a PDF exported from PowerPoint

Security situation:

security is handled by a checkbox called admin

Future disaster:

It will fail five minutes before a board meeting.

Age: 216 days · originally expected to last 3 months · 1 owner so far · survived 1 reorganisation · last meaningful change 216 days ago

Rated common mostly because: 76% chance of becoming business critical, 1 accidental connections, alive 2x longer than intended.