Stories

Four working days, up close

Scroll. The clock, the queue and the counter move with you. Each story ends on a question only you can answer.

One message

“Hi, did my order arrive?”

A simple question at 9:14 in the morning, by Instagram DM. Scroll and follow it. The clock moves with you.

09:14
Negar writes: “Hi, did my order 1042 arrive?”
In an Instagram DM. One sentence. The answer is a tracking code that already exists somewhere.
09:31
Saba sees it. She takes a screenshot.
Saba watches Instagram, but orders are not hers. So she does what everyone does: she photographs the message.
09:32
The picture goes into the Telegram group “Coordination”.
With a “who checks this?”. The group has 14 members. The message slides under three others.
10:48
An hour and sixteen minutes later, Ali sees the group.
He opens orders-final-2.xlsx. Looks for 1042. Its row says “shipped”. Tracking code? The column is empty.
10:55
Ali phones the warehouse.
Nobody answers. He leaves a message: “Send me the tracking code for 1042.”
11:40
The warehouse calls back: it went yesterday. Code: 41028873.
Ali writes it on paper. Then types it into the Telegram group. Gets one digit wrong, corrects it.
11:52
The code is in the group. Saba hasn't seen it yet.
Saba is on something else. Telegram shows 31 unread.
13:07
Saba pastes the code into the DM. Sends it.
Negar found the answer herself on the post office site an hour ago.
One question
Three hours and fifty-three minutes. Three people. Five tools. Seven handoffs.
Nobody did anything wrong. Everyone did exactly what they always do.
How many hands does this message pass through in your company?

One Friday

340 messages, and Mina

Mina answers a shoe shop's Instagram. Fridays are selling days. The big number is the messages waiting.

08:00
47 messages left from last night.
Mina puts her coffee beside the phone. Every message: read it, understand it, find the answer somewhere else, type it.
08:40
31 answered. 22 new ones in.
She is fast. But every answer she sends, two new ones light up below it.
09:30
The courier came. The phone rang. Twenty minutes away.
When she gets back, 38 has become 61.
11:00
94.
Mina is fast. The messages are faster. And most of them are one of the same three questions, in different words.
11:01
The same message, one second after it arrives.
On the stage above: everything the message wanted, pulled apart — and a draft reply, ready for Mina to only glance at.
11:02
82 messages had their answer right there.
Price, stock, delivery time — from the same stockroom and price list Mina opened every time. 12 needed a person: a complaint, a return, a customer who just wanted to talk to someone.
One question
Mina still answers — the 12 who actually needed her.
Of yesterday's messages, how many actually needed a person?

One week

The day the developer left

Nima had built the booking system alone for two years. He left on Wednesday. Ramin arrived on Thursday. The counter is the things only Nima knew.

Only Nima knew

Wednesday

Day

final_v3_REAL.zip (+ final_v3.zip, final.zip)

README.md — missing

app.js — 4,212 lines

invoice.js — price in 7 places

tests/ — empty

config.js — database password

sms.js — account on a personal email

README.md — running in 5 minutes

npm test — 140 tests, green

pricing.ts — the price, once

.env.example — no secret in the code

If your developer leaves tomorrow, what stays?

Wednesday 17:00
Nima says goodbye.
The system works. Sixty bookings a day. Nobody is worried.
Thursday 09:00
Ramin picks a zip file off the shared drive.
final_v3_REAL.zip. Next to it, final_v3.zip and final.zip. Which one is on the server? No README. Ramin guesses.
Thursday 09:40
One file. 4,212 lines.
Everything in app.js: bookings, SMS, payment, reports. Ramin scrolls for forty minutes.
Saturday
The PDF invoice still shows the old price.
The price was written in seven places. Ramin found five. Two customers got invoices at the old price and one called.
Sunday
Tests? The folder is empty.
Every change Ramin makes is a guess. The only way to learn something broke is for a customer to call.
Monday
The database password is in the code. The SMS account is on Nima's personal email.
Ramin messages Nima. Nima is travelling. Booking confirmations don't go out for three days.
A month later
Ramin: “Rewriting it is cheaper than understanding it.”
Two years of work, again. Not because it worked badly — because only one person knew how it worked, and that person had left.
The same Thursday, on another project
Ramin reads the README. Runs npm test. Green.
The price is written in one place. He changes it, the tests go green again, and it ships before noon. Nobody knows Nima left — because it makes no difference.
One question
None of this was a bug. The system worked. It just wasn't yours.
If your developer leaves tomorrow, what stays?

Day one

Sara and the internal system

Sara started today. Her job is registering customers and orders. The counter is how many times she has to ask someone “where is this?”.

09:05
The login screen has two buttons: “Login” and “Sign in”.
Sara looks for ten seconds. Then asks the colleague beside her. One was for staff, one for managers. It said so nowhere.
09:20
Where do you register a new customer?
Under a menu called “Other”. Next to “Print settings” and “Export to Excel”. Sara asks.
09:41
She saves. “Error.”
That's all. Not which error, not where, not what to do. The form is wiped too. Sara asks. Her colleague: “Oh — don't start the mobile number with zero.”
10:15
She types the date in the Persian calendar. It goes red.
The field wants Gregorian. With dashes. Sara doesn't know today's Gregorian date. She asks.
11:30
400 rows. She needs one. No search.
Sara scrolls. Asks. Her colleague: “Press Ctrl+F.”
12:30
She asked seven times.
None of it was about the work. All of it was about the software. And seven times, her colleague stopped their own.
One question
Training is the cost bad design charges everyone else — every time someone new arrives.
How many times does your new hire ask “where is this?” on day one?

Loading…

Negar writes: “Hi, did my order 1042 arrive?”

Saba sees it. She takes a screenshot.

The picture goes into the Telegram group “Coordination”.

An hour and sixteen minutes later, Ali sees the group.

Ali phones the warehouse.

The warehouse calls back: it went yesterday. Code: 41028873.

The code is in the group. Saba hasn't seen it yet.

Saba pastes the code into the DM. Sends it.

Three hours and fifty-three minutes. Three people. Five tools. Seven handoffs.

47 messages left from last night.

31 answered. 22 new ones in.

The courier came. The phone rang. Twenty minutes away.

94.

The same message, one second after it arrives.

82 messages had their answer right there.

Mina still answers — the 12 who actually needed her.

Nima says goodbye.

Ramin picks a zip file off the shared drive.

One file. 4,212 lines.

The PDF invoice still shows the old price.

Tests? The folder is empty.

The database password is in the code. The SMS account is on Nima's personal email.

Ramin: “Rewriting it is cheaper than understanding it.”

Ramin reads the README. Runs npm test. Green.

None of this was a bug. The system worked. It just wasn't yours.

The login screen has two buttons: “Login” and “Sign in”.

Where do you register a new customer?

She saves. “Error.”

She types the date in the Persian calendar. It goes red.

400 rows. She needs one. No search.

She asked seven times.

Training is the cost bad design charges everyone else — every time someone new arrives.