‘Twas a night during change freeze, and all through the code,
Not a PR was committing, no push, no upload.
The engineers were all nestled, snug in their beds,
While visions of hotfixes danced in their heads.
The software was frozen, no updates allowed,
In fear of breaking something, causing a crowd.
But out on the pager, there arose such a clatter,
The on-call engineer sprang from her bed to see what was the matter.
She logged into the server, with a faint, weary sigh,
Hoping the issue was minor, and not something to cry.
She traced the error logs, and debugged with great care,
Searching for the source, to fix it, if there.
And then, in a moment, the issue was found,
A simple mistake, but it caused the system to drown.
She rolled back the change, and the software came alive,
And the engineer breathed a sigh of relief, grateful to survive.
The on-call life is hectic, and sometimes quite rough,
But the love of the challenge is what keeps us tough.
So here’s to the engineers, working hard through the night,
Happy New Year’s to all, and to all a good-night.
P.S. to the Grinch – stay away!
(We’re looking at you, log4j.)
Credits: Poem modified from ChatGPT results, image rendered by DALL-E
Kathleen Codes 