I fixed my Google Sheets AI automation by stopping it from pretending to be a CRM

Description and use

<p>I knew the spreadsheet was cooked when somebody added a column named <code>last_followup_status_v2_final</code>.</p> <p>That was the moment it stopped being a Google Sheet and started becoming a hostage situation.</p> <p>The original workflow was fine:</p> <ul> <li>Google Form submits a row</li> <li>Google Sheets stores it</li> <li>AI cleans up the text</li> <li>Slack gets a notification</li> </ul> <p>Totally reasonable.</p> <p>A month later, it had turned into a fake CRM with 37 columns, three Apps Script triggers, conditional formatting everywhere, and enough hidden logic that nobody want

Problem

<p>I knew the spreadsheet was cooked when somebody added a column named <code>last_followup_status_v2_final</code>.</p> <p>That was the moment it stopped being a Google Sheet and started becoming a hostage situation.</p> <p>The original workflow was fine:</p> <ul> <li>Google Form submits a row</li> <li>Google Sheets stores it</li> <li>AI cleans up the text</li> <li>Slack gets a notification</li> </ul> <p>Totally reasonable.</p> <p>A month later, it had turned into a fake CRM with 37 columns, three Apps Script triggers, conditional formatting everywhere, and enough hidden logic that nobody want

Outcome

<p>I knew the spreadsheet was cooked when somebody added a column named <code>last_followup_status_v2_final</code>.</p> <p>That was the moment it stopped being a Google Sheet and started becoming a hostage situation.</p> <p>The original workflow was fine:</p> <ul> <li>Google Form submits a row</li> <li>Google Sheets stores it</li> <li>AI cleans up the text</li> <li>Slack gets a notification</li> </ul> <p>Totally reasonable.</p> <p>A month later, it had turned into a fake CRM with 37 columns, three Apps Script triggers, conditional formatting everywhere, and enough hidden logic that nobody want

Evidence

I fixed my Google Sheets AI automation by stopping it from pretending to be a CRM

Source