Comment by inimino

"Self-destruct sequence initiated, cannot abort." should be left in the world of sci-fi.

If there is a physical process that cannot be stopped (rocket, nuclear reactor, oil well) then of course the system must be designed around that physical fact.

But this is an HR process. The "moving parts" are people.

If it was designed with the intent that human intervention should be impossible, the design was a failure.

Perhaps more likely it was just a failure of implementation (there's a cancel button but nobody knows where) or of imagination (nobody thought about whether the process could be canceled or not).

What if instead of HR, this was a financial process, playing out over days or weeks, entirely beyond the company's control. Would any sane CFO approve such a thing?

> Cost often supersedes quality or flexibility

That helps to explain it, but it doesn't excuse it.