In the 1,924 Reddit and Hacker News items, most writers describe how they handle the problem — or that they cannot. Aggregated, here is the workaround table, ranked by mentions.
Ranked by frequency
- No workaround — endure it or do it by hand: 203.
- Build a private file or notes outside the official system to save yourself: 124.
- Use ChatGPT/AI to write the formulas, reports and summaries instead of wiring systems together: 122.
- Copy-paste across files as a chain, A to B to C, with no automation: 108.
- Email or chat to request the data, wait for someone else to export it, then compile by hand: 74.
- Convoluted formulas to work around the software's limits: 73.
- Buy an extra standalone tool to patch the gap, without integrating it: 71.
- One person acts as the API: takes data by hand from system A, types it into system B: 45.
- Keep the old macro/VBA running because nobody can fix it, only one person understands it: 40.
- Name files FINAL_v3, _LAST, with a warning not to edit: 27.
How to read this table
The top entry buys nothing. Having no workaround (203) outranks building a private tracker (124) and outranks using AI (122). Most of these problems are not being solved by a product — people do the work by hand or live with it. And among the workarounds that do use something, the top three are all self-rescue outside the system: a private file, AI, copy-paste.
The notable part is that AI appears twice in opposite roles. It is a problem in the AI-bloat group (382 mentions, AI pushed in unasked) and at the same time the third most common workaround (122 mentions). People resent AI being stuffed into the software they already bought, yet they still open ChatGPT themselves to cover the places the system cannot connect. What that route really costs: What an AI coding seat buys.
The recurring problem–workaround pairs
- Manual re-keying × copy-paste across files: 76.
- Manual re-keying × using AI: 33; × no workaround: 32; × convoluted formulas: 25; × email request: 19.
- Broken formulas × convoluted formulas to dodge the limits: 29.
- Broken process × no workaround: 23; access rights × no workaround: 22.
- Tool sprawl × buying another tool: 20.
- Spreadsheet as a database × private tracker: 19.
- Not knowing which file is final × secret naming convention: 10.
The practical conclusion
Read as a list of what is worth fixing, the order is: eliminate one round of manual re-keying — the chain 76 + 33 + 32 + 25 + 19 is the densest concentration in the data; reduce the number of tools instead of adding one, because the 20 mentions are precisely tool sprawl followed by buying another tool; and deal with the private files before they become business-critical. The problem ranking by severity is in 6,672 complaints.