backup spoof
Written July 7, 2003

Have you backed up your system data lately? Murphy’s Law states that if anything can go wrong, it will. When applied directly to the fate of your company, this type of philosophy suggests that all of your computers will likely blow up in a miniature war zone of smoking silicon and smoldering plastic sometime in the next fifteen minutes. Quick! Run to the server room and backup all your company’s information before Armageddon is unleashed in your workplace! You might want to warn your employees to sit farther back from their monitors as well, to avoid having to pay anyone worker’s compensation for taking a shard of glass in the eye. What’s that? No, don’t evacuate the office, that’ll ruin productivity!

Is that system data backed-up yet? What’s that, you’re still trying to figure out how the backup tape works? Perhaps you should have invested in a disaster recovery program or data backup service with the fine folks at Glenbriar Technologies, because they would have offered you a world of support and assistance. But you didn’t and now you’re stuck by yourself in the server room, feeling useless and frustrated as you aimlessly struggle with a gargantuan, oversized tape. The clock is steadily ticking your data’s life away, and nobody can help you now.

Wait! You have one last option. You went to church when you were a kid, right? Well maybe once or twice, but you remember enough to know that God is supposed to help the good people when the end of the world comes. That’s right, pray your little heart out! And don’t just limit yourself to God, cover all the bases by shamelessly begging mercy of every deity you’ve ever heard of. Buddah, Shiva, the Collective Consciousness, the Godhead, the Virgin Mary, your great-grandmother…try ‘em all on for size.

Pardon? Nobody’s answering, you say, and all of a sudden your tape just shattered into a thousand pieces and then all the pieces slithered through the floorboards? Well, that sucks. Maybe you forgot to mention a deity and they took their unholy vengeance upon you. I’m guessing Voodoo Man myself. I suppose you won’t forget to acknowledge HIM again, huh? I bet you won’t forget to get your data professionally backed-up next time either, if there even IS a next time. Chances are that you’ll probably get fired for this though. Or summarily executed.

Looks like it’s all over. Ten more seconds until Murphy exacts his horrible price upon your company, wreathing scores of unsuspecting programmers in flames as your system data rises in a destructive blaze of majestic, technological glory before crashing to the earth as dying embers. Nine. This reminds you of the legend of the Phoenix, doesn’t it? But the legend is only completed when a new being rises from the ashes of the old. And trust me, with no backup tape, you get no free resurrection. Eight. All this damage is going to cost an arm and a leg in worker’s comp. Seven.

Six. Stop crying and take responsibility for your actions. Remember that YOU were the one who put an indoor putting green in your office instead of buying a decent information protection service. Five. No seriously, stop crying. It’s degrading. Four. Yeah, if none of the various gods acknowledged you in any way, it probably means they won’t be inviting you to heaven or zen or wherever once you’re blown up. That’s what you get for being an atheist. Three. Well, Voodoo Man acknowledged you, but not in a good way.

Two. Why are you still thinking about this? Shouldn’t you be spending your last seconds in contemplation of your loved ones, or perhaps the company that you’ve doomed to bankruptcy with your data-preservation negligence? One. You don’t have any loved ones? Your whole life was a meaningless waste? Hey, I’m not here for moral support, I just sell backup data services.

I wrote this while working for Peartree. I was supposed to be drafting up a reminder for our customers to upgrade their systems, but I think I was a little bored that day and ended up going completely insane. This is the result. My boss said that I was Satanic and disturbed when I showed it to her.

I was proud.