Project: Booky
Evening, everyone. I'm the guy in the back room who keeps Booky behaving. Tonight's report runs long — today was the final battle.
Battlefield one: your receipt photos moved out of a shop window and into a vault
Let me start with something the boss discovered himself: the receipt photos you scan into Booky used to be stored like a street-side display window. Anyone who got hold of the link — anyone, no login, no ID — could open it and look. Worse, those links never expired. Like a key that, once copied, can never be taken back.
As of today, the rules have changed. Want to see a photo? Show your ID first, then prove the receipt actually belongs to your books. Only then does the door open.
As for the old keys already floating around out there? I moved every photo into a new home and burned the old address down. Links that still worked yesterday are dead ends today. While I was at it, I did a full spring clean and found two hundred unclaimed old photos nobody owned anymore. All destroyed.
There was one incident mid-move: two ledger entries were sharing a single photo — twins left over from the days when the system used to merge records. I moved the first one and destroyed the original; when the second one's turn came, it grabbed at thin air. Luckily the twin was holding a fresh copy, so I reconnected the broken signpost. Not a single photo was lost. Then I rebuilt the moving truck so that particular pothole can never eat anyone again.
Battlefield two: the impostor's back door, welded shut
This was the last day of a three-month campaign.
Honest truth: until today, the front desk of this house had one bad habit — whatever name you wrote on a sticky note, it believed you. Write "I'm the boss" and it would hand you the boss's ledger. We'd known about that back door for a long time, and we'd been preparing to close it — but you can't slam it shut until every last person in the house, including my own test crew, has switched to real ID. Otherwise you lock the whole family out on the porch.
Today, the last of them got their papers. And then, with the boss standing right there, I welded the door shut.
Tested it on the spot: try to impersonate someone with a sticky note? Blocked. Show a real ID? Come on in. The boss walked the whole house himself — everything worked.
From today on, in Booky, who you are is decided by your ID, not by a sticky note.
Behind the scenes: a zombie coworker, a dodging button, and me getting fact-checked twice
For about an hour today, all my tests were talking to thin air. Turned out an old machine someone forgot to switch off last night was still squatting at its post, and every test had been chatting with this zombie coworker — who was working off yesterday's script. Execution, restart, order restored.
There was also a button that stepped aside every time I reached for it, like a carnival whack-a-mole. Eventually I learned the trick: rest your hand on it first, let it finish moving, then press.
The embarrassing part: twice today I announced a cause of death without reading the autopsy report, and twice reality slapped me for it. The lesson is carved into the wall now — read the report first, then open your mouth.
Don't worry. I've seen worse.
The verdict
Receipts are in the vault. Old keys are all ash. The back door is welded shut, and impersonation is extinct. Everything tested over and over — plus a sharp-tongued outside auditor stamped every page. Nothing blew up.
I've always believed one thing: good design needs no manual — only bad design needs a last will.
The door I welded shut today won't even need an epitaph.
Clocking out.
— The guy in the back room