‘Twas the night before the upgrade…

‘Twas the night before the upgrade, when all through the place
Not a backup was working, “there’s not enough disk space”;
The software was compiled and packaged with care,
In hopes that some QA was actually done there.

I called the PM and he proceeded to shout,
“You’re the DBA, you figure it out!”
When out of the lunchroom there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my chair to see what was the matter.

I ran to the door and what did I see,
The developers having a potluck, they didn’t invite me.
They had smartphones and tablets of every shape and size,
They were typing and texting and avoiding each other’s eyes.

And then I saw the manager, he smiled at me wanly,
I was really kind of irritated that he sat there so calmly.
He was chubby and plump, kind of an ugly old toad
And I laughed when I saw him, this guy was a load.

I told him the problem, but he didn’t seem to care
I incited a response by giving him a glare.
“What’s the problem?” he asked, “I heard it was clustered!”
I said “I’m talking ketchup and you’re talking mustard.”

He scratched his bald head and looked around confused,
I was amazed he could breathe, so little brain being used.
I quickly turned away before I began to snigger,
I still had a problem to fix and it was only growing bigger.

I returned to my desk, I had one more play,
I called the sys admins to see what they’d say.
Their response was expected, they said “It’s a bummer,”
“We won’t have more disk space until sometime next summer!”

As much as I tried, it was plain to see,
That the person to fix this was clearly going to be me.
So donning my rarely seen grumpy DBA face,
I put up my sign “Need help? This isn’t the place!”

I began searching for files I could readily delete,
Hopefully a process I could repeatedly repeat.
I searched and searched, I poked and prodded
Looking for files that were useless and rotted.

Finally I found it, a folder full of crap
That didn’t belong there, I could delete it in a snap.
There were pictures and videos and documents aplenty,
By my last count there were 14,520.

The files were ancient, 7 or 8 years, some older,
I could with a clear conscience delete the whole folder.
I opened a picture to see what was there,
I saw a familiar face, but in those days he had hair.

Right click “delete” and the folder was demolished,
I’d done a good job, one more apple polished.
I looked in the trash bin, the folder I detected
I emptied it quickly so it couldn’t be resurrected.

I dashed to the lunch room to find my bald friend
To give him the sad news of his folders unfortunate end.
But it was he that was laughing when my story was done
There was a twinkle in his eye, he was really having fun.

He said, “Oh man you’re in trouble, you’re now cannon fodder,
Those pix are the CEO’s, I married his daughter!”
So I returned to my desk to pack up my stuff,
This fateful night was over, I’d already had enough.

As I walked out the door, you could clearly hear me say,
“To all a good night, here’s a copy of my updated résumé.”