We had a Dev environment that showed a doge meme on the auth page that had been there for like...7 years or something? "So auth. Much secure. Wow." etc.
Every other environment had standard boiler plate corporate logo + whatever product name. We kept the meme stuff in Dev just so you could be visually reminded, "Oh right, this is the crazy broken one."
Queue 7 years later, an emergency where we just had to impress a new client with a demo of how the product would work. And of course, the only thing that was really in a semi-ready state...was Dev. We couldn't move it over to a different one for some stupid reason or another.
Number one comment after the demo? "This looks very unprofessional. We do not want a dog logo on the login page. Is your team taking this seriously?"
We ran into the same thing back in the dot-com era. The development group had a sample customer set up as "Master Bait & Tackle", which had an outdoor outfitter theme. With items like fishing reels, lures, backpacks, etc. Entirely innocent (apart from the name).
Sales & Marketing got wind of how consistent the data was in it and wanted a copy they could use in presentations and for trade-show exhibits. We all said absolutely not. But they went around us and got a copy anyway.
It did not go well when a potential customer made a comment about the name during a demo.
Lesson learned. Always use the word "Test" in your test data. Always.
Every other environment had standard boiler plate corporate logo + whatever product name. We kept the meme stuff in Dev just so you could be visually reminded, "Oh right, this is the crazy broken one."
Queue 7 years later, an emergency where we just had to impress a new client with a demo of how the product would work. And of course, the only thing that was really in a semi-ready state...was Dev. We couldn't move it over to a different one for some stupid reason or another.
Number one comment after the demo? "This looks very unprofessional. We do not want a dog logo on the login page. Is your team taking this seriously?"