Lads, we have all the data

Lads, we have all the data. The client leaned in with a smirk that practically said…

“Aren’t we generous? We have data, and we’re gonna pay you.”

The requirement was simple indeed. Add an AI bot to their legacy document management system.

Except… they kinda forgot to mention one teeny tiny detail.

All that data is crammed into a sad, pitiful excuse of a single-table database. And not just any database. They went rogue. Instead of using rows, theirs flows sideways. Each product gets a row with 39 columns for related documents.

And, If you want to add more?

Well, you can’t!

When a file is updated, it logs that someone did something to some document. But not the id of the updated doc. So, if you want to know what changed?

Well, you can’t!

A week later, we submitted the estimate. Bot implementation – 3 days. Data cleanup – 3 months.

Watching their smirk fade? Priceless.