Silly Saturday, 2018.11.24, the Kenny Rogers edition

On a late Sunday evenin',
At a start-up out of runway,
I sat next to The Greybeard,
We were both too tired to weep.
So we took turns a-sighin'
As the errors rolled from Jenkins,
'Til ennui overtook him
And he began to speak.

He said, "Grrl, I've made a life
Out of savin' founders' bacon,
Smellin' trouble brewin'
'Fore the pinks slips start to fly.
By the green hue of your skin-tone,
I can see you called your options
If you'll walk me down the hall-way,
I'll give you some advice."

So we headed to the break-room
And he kicked my butt at foos-ball,
Then opened up the drink-'fridge
And slammed a Mountain Dew.
Then the place got almost quiet
Once we set our phones to "vibrate."
He said, "If you wanna make the rent, grrl,
This is what you got to do."

[Chorus]
"You got to know when to ship it,
Know when to slip it,
Know when to refactor,
When to let things stand.
You never work ev'ry weekend
If the CEO's not there, too.
There'll be time enough for workin'
When the Round A lands."

"Now, ev'ry Greybeard knows,
That the secret to the pay-off
Is knowin' that ideas mean jack
When your team can't see them through.
'Cause every app. is Facebook
And every app. is Friendster,
And the best that you can hope for
Is your VCs know it, too."

And when he'd finished speakin'
He ordered up an Uber,
Buffed his LinkedIn resume,
Tossed his work-badge in the trash.
And once at his next start-up,
The Greybeard hit the jackpot.
But in his parting words I'd found
Advice that I could cash.

[Repeat chorus three times]

Frivolous Friday, 2015.01.02: The Rogers & Hammerstein edition

My Favourite Rings

Texts from my boyfriend sound like a glockenspiel;
Texts from my ex don't since I have blocked that heel.
Calls from my bestie play symphonic strings:
These are a few of my favourite rings.

70s Rock always means it's my mother,
(Though she'd prefer jazz, if given her 'druthers)
My manager's signaled by submarine pings:
These are a few of my favourite rings.

Pink Floyd's "Dogs" recalls pet vaccinations.
Journey's "Escape" warns me to make reservations.
Yoga is hot tonight if Peggy Lee sings:
These are a few of my favourite rings.

Blaring Mozart
Or marimbas
Or shredding of guitar:
I simply configure my favourite rings
So that I'll always know who you are.

Frivolous Friday, 2014.09.17: "Paint"-ron Saint

These latter weeks I race against the Fall
(With light and prospects both fading dim)
To splash fresh colour upon the walls
And white-wash over banged-up trim.

(While the cat is drawn just like a moth
To bask in the floor-lamp for his nap
And purr himself asleep on the drop-cloth
Or--more likely--bunked down in my lap.)

To act as broker for my prayers
I'm in the market for a Patron Saint
As layer I slather upon layers
In full rainbow of interior paint.

(While the cat is drawn just like a moth
To bask in the floor-lamp for his nap
And purr himself asleep on the drop-cloth
Or--more likely--bunked down in my lap.)

My brush may you guide, O Saint Latex
As I lacquer drywall, trim, and doors,
Be the angel who from slips protects
Both plastered ceilings and hardwood floors.

(While the cat is drawn just like a moth
To bask in the floor-lamp for his nap
And purr himself asleep on the drop-cloth
Or--more likely--bunked down in my lap.)

Through all the boring prep demanding
Keep my perseverence evergreen
Tho' nostrils twitch from hardwood-sanding
And house redolent of Mr. Clean.

(While the cat is drawn just like a moth
To bask in the floor-lamp for his nap
And purr himself asleep on the drop-cloth
Or--more likely--bunked down in my lap.)

As the ladders up and down I swarm
Grant my clumsy limbs unwonted grace
Keep my toes and shins away from harm
And furniture now jumbled out of place.

(While the cat is drawn just like a moth
To bask in the floor-lamp for his nap
And purr himself asleep on the drop-cloth
Or--more likely--bunked down in my lap.)

But should you grant no other boon
Give a few days more of sunny clime.
Well I know that window closes soon
And I cannot be profligate with time.

(While the cat is drawn just like a moth
To bask in the floor-lamp for his nap
And purr himself asleep on the drop-cloth
Or--more likely--bunked down in my lap.)

Your name I will bless amid colours bright
When Winter bleaches earth and sea and sky
And in my office by monitor light
My digital craft once again I ply.

(While the cat is drawn just like a moth
To bask in my desk-light for his nap
And make his winter nest in blanket-cloth
Or--most likely--curl up in my lap.)

Silly Sunday, 09.11.2011: A reorg. poem

The rumor mill is humming
As it's running at full bore:
Word from the grapevine says that
A reorg. is in store.

And soon The Powers That Be
Are citing "re-alignment,"
Which for us can only mean
One thing: Reassignment.

So boxes now we scavenge,
Then we pack up all our stuff
And cough and sneeze amidst the haze
Of dust and lint and fluff.

Windex and compressed air
At each cube make a stop:
Coffee-rings fade, keyboards harvest
Crumb-farm bumper-crops!

Our PCs we then power down
And unsnarl spaghetti-wires;
Desktop Support is too swamped
With fighting bigger fires.

Traffic crowds the elevators
The hallways and the stairs
As we ferry stacks of boxes
And monitors on chairs.

We read our mail by smartphone
And quell the urge to thwack
That fool in our new office who
Has not begun to pack.

Greetings, my new cube-mate:
No doubt we'll get on fine--
So long as you keep to your half
Like I will keep to mine.

New roles and hats are donned
Tho' the going starts out slow.
And as the dust yet settles,
One thing I claim to know:

In my annual review
Surely this I did not mean
When I said that I could use
A little change of scene.

Frivolous Friday, 05.27.2001: First World Lament

(Blame the "#GoodnightTwitter" trending topic from earlier this week...)

It's eleven p.m.,
The pizza is cold,
My twelfth-level Mage
Has run short on gold.

My Twitter-stream flows by
At barely a trickle.
Pandora's turned flighty;
Her stations are fickle.

My friends' updates likewise
Have slowed to a crawl.
I hear through the silence
The Facebook games call.

But I'm not keen on farming
Nor buccaneering tonight;
Don't feel like a mobster--
Much less elven knight.

I could turn to my Netflix
On-demand streaming.
(Tho' when credits are rolling,
I'll already be dreaming.)

I could pound down a 'Dew
Or blend a frapee,
Except my IM-mates
Have called it a day.

Or fire up the tablet
And download new apps.
To amuse my remaining
(Non-snoozing) synapse.

Or load my e-Reader
With books new and cool
And hope I don't short it
In a puddle of drool.

Both eyelids are south-bound,
I won't greet the dawn,
Tomorrow's a new day--
Another re-spawn.

But it's Friday night on
A three-day weekend:
And moi turn in early?!?
Cthulu forefend!

Frivolous Friday, 01.14.2011: Song of the shovel

There's a music that's made
When a white velvet falls
To lay down fresh carpets
For the Winter Queen's halls

Sadly, its melody
Woos no listener's ear,
For its tunesmiths intend
That none other should hear

Its rasps nor its scrapings
Nor its snuf'lings of nose,
As the mercury drops
And a western wind blows.

Yet on plays this minstrel
Under veiled winter moon
(Though she with two handles
Could not carry a tune),

For she thinks on the Spring,
Of lilacs and sparrows--
As the banks pile higher
And blacktop drive narrows.

Then Sisphysian toils
Have some ending in sight
(Though the plow-rolls rebuild
Themselves during the night).

So the minstrel meanwhile
With her shovel plays on,
Paying the Winter Queen
Homage of labor's song.

Frivolous Friday, 10.01.2010: The Harry Chapin edition

We forked some code in 2004;
It should've been cleaner heading out the door,
But, "We're on the short road to 'broke' from 'poor,'
And maintenance contracts are what that work's for."
But as I copied all the files I couldn't throw away,
They said, "We're coming back to play, yeah--
You know you'll see us back in play."

And our fat's in the fire
Like a greasy spoon:
We've bet the farm, promised them the moon.
"When we scrubbin' code, boss?"
"I don't know when, but we'll just refactor then, yeah--
You know we'll have the budget then."

We fork again in 2006:
This flabby old dog needs to learn new tricks.
But our client doesn't want their data mixed:
We throw it at the wall again--and it still sticks!
And as I hit CTRL-C and then CTRL-V,
The code said, "You ain't seen the last of me, no--
You know it'll be you and me."

And our fat's in the fire
Like a greasy spoon:
We've bet the farm, promised them the moon.
"When we scrubbin' code, boss?"
"I don't know when, but we'll just refactor then, yeah--
You know we'll have the budget then."

So, the next fork lands around 2008
The app. is buckling under its own weight.
But, see, there's this new client, they have some bling
We're hitting the big-time, can't ya' hear "Cha-ching!"?
We'll just get a big, bad server to handle the bursts--
But you need to make the code work first.

And our fat's in the fire
Like a greasy spoon:
We've bet the farm, promised them the moon.
"When we scrubbin' code, boss?"
"I don't know when, but we'll just refactor then, yeah--
You know we'll have the budget then."

Now we find ourselves here in 2010:
The same old movie's playing again.
The code is too duct-taped to take a new patch
Our best option would be to start over from scratch.
But we can't afford the staff-hours, 'cuz we're in a time-crunch;
Competitors would eat our lunch, yo--
Competitors would eat our lunch.

And I realized amid the dismay and the fuss,
We've none to blame but us:
The enemy is us.

And our fat's in the fire
Like a greasy spoon:
We've bet the farm, promised them the moon.
"When we scrubbin' code, boss?"
"I don't know when, but we'll just refactor then, yeah--
You know we'll have the budget then."

Frivolous Friday, 08.06.2010: The Andrew Marvell edition

(Because carpe diem applies just as much to software startups as it does to 17th Century metaphysical verse. In case you've forgotten "To His Coy Mistress" since Lit. class, the original's here. NQSFW, btw--who'd have guessed that the wooing of previous centuries could be anything but G-rated, I ask you...)

Had we but funds enough, and time,
Such rework, partner, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To make thy scope-change o' the day.
Design alone should then decide
Which features go, and which abide:
Conflating always "could" with "should,"
From teeming brains unleash our flood.
All options could we then peruse
As if we had all time to lose.
Our feature list we'd prune to grow
Into a flawless one-point-oh.
Our sanguine prospects we'd appraise
And rounds of VC funding raise.
We'd merely have to ship the best,
And let the trade buzz do the rest.
Our product then could pass for art
Which woos the mind--but wins the heart.
For, partner, we deserve this state,
Nor would I set a nearer date.

But at my back I always hear
Our promised ship-date drawing near;
And looming always in mind's eye
The spectre of our bankruptcy.
A ramen diet is not sound,
Nor second code-shop can we found
When lawyers and collectors vie
For our extant liquidity;
Our patents yellow'd, gath'ring dust--
Such booming prospects turned to bust!
Thy changes have both time and place,
But not whilst setting market's pace.

Before insisting that our crew
Subsist on naught but Mountain Dew,
Pray damper thy creative fires
Until we've time for what inspires.
Now let us triage while we may:
With time-to-market seize the day,
By marking progress with the hour
And prizing bud before the flower.
Let us roll all our efforts, all
Our focus, up into one ball,
And waste not time o'er pointless strife--
A beta, rather, bring to life.
And, though thy tweaks shan't make V. One,
In version 2 they'll have their run.

Frivolous Friday, 06.04.2010: Schadenfriday limericks, Part II

Honestly, I don't think you can stay in I/T without at least a few strands of optimism in your neural wiring. (Although--oddly enough--a healthy streak of paranoia is never a bad trait for anyone who has to keep systems up & running & un-hacked.) That being said, the dewy-eyed-gee-whiz-ain't-technology-grand attitude that the magazine & gadget blog industry trades on can become a little insufferable at times. Luckily (for anyone else who feels this way), the antidote comes your way in five-line doses, starting...now.

Your smartphone looks new and so sleek
Palm-cradled or upside your cheek.
Yet buyers' remorse
Will come in due course:
A cooler one launches next week.

Computers forever surprise
Inverting chips' power to size:
Crunching data to store--
With less being Moore.
(If only our brains worked likewise.)

Instructions you'd joyfully pen
To head off computer mayhem.
Then 't'would be All Good,
If peeps only could
Stop freaking and RTFM.

On keyboard you've labored all day;
Your masterpiece goes to QA.
Yet, though unit-tests
Gave hopes for the best,
Bug tickets are headed your way.

Our tech. will be thrilled to discuss
The error that's caused so much fuss.
Please continue to hold
Until you grow old:
Your call is important to us.