Sunday, October 14, 2007

Abort, Retry, Ignore

Once upon a midnight dreary,Fingers cramped and vision bleary,System manuals piled high and wasted paper on the floor,Longing for the warmth of bedsheets,Still I sat here doing spreadsheets:Having reached the bottom line,
I took a floppy from the drawer.Typing with a steady hand,I then invoked the "save" commandBut got instead a reprimand: it read, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?
"Was this some occult illusion?Some manacal type intrusion?These were choices Solomon himself had never faced before.Carefully I weighed my options...These three seemed to be the top ones.Clearly I must now adopt one; choose: Abort, Retry, Ignore?
With my fingers pale and tremblingSlowly toward the keyboard bending,
Longing for a happy ending, hoping all would be restoredPraying for some guarantee,Finally I pressed a key.But what on the screen did I see? Again "Abort, Retry, Ignore?
"I tried to catch the chips off guard -I pressed again, but twice as hard,But luck was just not on the cards, I saw what I had seen before.Now I typed in desperationTrying random combinations.Still there came the incantation "Abort, Retry, Ignore.
"There I sat, distraught, exhausted,By my own machine accostedgetting up, I turned away and paced across the office floor.And then I saw an awful sightA bold and blinding flash of lightA lightening bolt that cut the night, and shook me to my very core.The PC screen collapsed and died."OH NO! MY DATABASE!"
I cried.I heard a distant voice reply, "You'll see your spreadsheets...nevermore!"To this day I do not knowThe place to which our data goes.perhaps it goes to heaven, where the angels have it stored.But as for Productivity, well,I fear this has gone straight to Hell.And that's the tale I have to tell - your choice: Abort, Retry, Ignore.

No comments: