Perfect Code, Imperfect Reality

I watched my colleague build a Google Apps Script to automate our audits.

Hours of perfect AI code generation... promises of efficiency dancing in our minds.

Then reality hits.

First, the script keeps timing out. Then edge cases break. Finally, the perfect solution fades like a mirage.

I watch her expression shift from excitement to disappointment.

Have you experienced the moment when AI dreams crash into reality? That post-innovation emptiness?

I call it "AI hangover."

Like any morning after, the headache isn't punishment - it's information. The discomfort tells a story.

What if that story isn't about failure at all?

Every failed automation reveals forgotten complexity. Every timeout whispers about scale. Every edge case maps the assumed flat territory.

We failed the automation, but we created a high-resolution map of reality.

That map is more valuable than the automation we wanted. It shows us the territory we didn’t know we needed to understand.