A tale of woe...by Poe?
Or a vain attempt at literature by the computer semi-literate?
Anonymous, with all apologies due to E. A. Poe
Once upon a midnight dreary, fingers cramped and vision bleary,
Systems manuals piled high and wasted paper on the floor,
Longing for the warmth of bedsheets,
Still I sat there, doing spreadsheets:
Having reached the bottom line,
I took a floppy from the drawer.
Typing with a steady hand, I then invoked the SAVE command
But got instead a reprimand: it read "Abort, Retry, Ignore".
Was this some occult illusion? Some maniacal 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 trembling,
Slowly toward the keyboard bending,
Longing for a happy ending, hoping all would be restored,
Praying for some guarantee
Finally I pressed a key -
But on the screen what did I see?
Again: "Abort, Retry, Ignore".
I tried to catch the chips off-guard -
I pressed again, but twice as hard.
Luck was just not in the cards,
I saw what I had seen before.
Now I typed in desparation,
Trying random combinations.
Still there came the incantation -
Choose: "Abort, Retry, Ignore".
There I sat, distraught, exhausted, by my own machine accosted;
Getting up, I turned away and paced across the office floor.
And then I saw an awful sight,
A bold and blinding flash of light,
A lightning 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 thought I heard a voice reply,
"You'll see your data - Nevermore!"
To this day I do not know
the place to which our data goes
Perhaps it goes to Heaven where the angels have it stored.
But as for productivity - well,
I fear that it goes straight to...hell.
And that's the tale I have to tell -
Your choice: Abort, Retry, Ignore.
Or a vain attempt at literature by the computer semi-literate?
Anonymous, with all apologies due to E. A. Poe
Once upon a midnight dreary, fingers cramped and vision bleary,
Systems manuals piled high and wasted paper on the floor,
Longing for the warmth of bedsheets,
Still I sat there, doing spreadsheets:
Having reached the bottom line,
I took a floppy from the drawer.
Typing with a steady hand, I then invoked the SAVE command
But got instead a reprimand: it read "Abort, Retry, Ignore".
Was this some occult illusion? Some maniacal 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 trembling,
Slowly toward the keyboard bending,
Longing for a happy ending, hoping all would be restored,
Praying for some guarantee
Finally I pressed a key -
But on the screen what did I see?
Again: "Abort, Retry, Ignore".
I tried to catch the chips off-guard -
I pressed again, but twice as hard.
Luck was just not in the cards,
I saw what I had seen before.
Now I typed in desparation,
Trying random combinations.
Still there came the incantation -
Choose: "Abort, Retry, Ignore".
There I sat, distraught, exhausted, by my own machine accosted;
Getting up, I turned away and paced across the office floor.
And then I saw an awful sight,
A bold and blinding flash of light,
A lightning 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 thought I heard a voice reply,
"You'll see your data - Nevermore!"
To this day I do not know
the place to which our data goes
Perhaps it goes to Heaven where the angels have it stored.
But as for productivity - well,
I fear that it goes straight to...hell.
And that's the tale I have to tell -
Your choice: Abort, Retry, Ignore.
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