(with apologies to Edgar Allen poem _The Raven_)
 
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 maniacal intrusion?
These were choices Solomon himself
   Had never faced before.
Carefully I weighed the options.
   These three seemed to be the top ones.
Clearly, now I must 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 had cut the night
   And shook me to my very core.
I saw the screen collapse and die;
   "No, 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?"