The ERP Team built a contract repository with no search

“It's only one container.”— Anja, The ERP Team

Reason:

Allegedly because the fax machine is still somehow involved. Presented in a town hall as "innovation".

Built by:

Anja, a warehouse supervisor

Build time:

9 evenings

Built with:

Excel macros, exposed over HTTP

Database:

two databases kept "mostly in sync"

Authentication:

security by obscurity, but without much obscurity

Deployment:

running from a zip file called Budget2026_final_FINAL.csv

Responsible:

Elena, according to Jira

Documentation:

a Loom video whose owner account has been deleted

Security situation:

debug mode is enabled in production

Future disaster:

It will be mentioned in an audit finding using the words "material weakness".

Age: 216 days · originally expected to last 4 weeks · 1 owner so far · survived 1 reorganisation · last meaningful change 19 days ago

Rated rare mostly because: €702k per year, 383 users, 3 departments depend on it.