(Author Unknown)
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 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 manaical 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 desperation, 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 cut through the night and shook me to the very core.
I saw the screen collapse and die. "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 lost data goes.
I bet 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.