PART I

Scene notesIt’s Sunday night. 9:30 pm to be exact. The kids are finally asleep. The hiss of the record needle stings Bill from across the room as a Jawbone wafts Mancini. One rock gently spins, melting in a finger of Scotch. It’s clearly deployment time. Bill wonders where his RSA key is as he rifles through his tattered Ted Baker bag (clearly a prized possession).
He sighs heavily and begins muttering “The VPN is acting up AGAIN. Go figure. pause I’m in. pause Where’s IT? Late again …” The chat window opens.

Br: Hey Bill, you here? B: Yeah man, sup? Br: Ready? B: As I’ll ever be, I suppose. Br: Stopping the service on TUBES. B: OK. Br: Copying the files over. B: Ok … just ping me when it’s done and I’ll test.

…

Br: The copy failed. Let me try this again.

…

B: K. (5 min. later) Br: Ok TUBES is done. Moving onto SOCKETS B: Testing. (45 min. later) B: Can you just stop the service on all of them and deploy the backups? Br: Where are they? B: The services or the backup files? Br: The backup files. B: Um, where ever you put them? Is this a trick question? Br: I didn’t copy them anywhere, was I supposed to? B: It’s the second step in the word doc dude … B: Brb. Need more whiskey. Br: K cries pierce through the jawbone now playing Ed Thigpen B: Little one is up again. Look can you just get the files from last Sunday’s deployment off the share and copy them back over onto all the servers? I’ll be right back. Br: Ok, but do I have to stop the service if it’s running? B: FOLLOW THE BACKOUT INSTRUCTION IN THE WORD DOC … I’ll brb. (scene)

Let me start by saying, I get it. I know where you are. I’ve been there. It’s not pretty, but it works. This is how it has to work sometimes. But … it can be better. And getting there is not dramatic or scary. It’s not their fault. It’s not IT’s fault. You’re the developer. You need to get in there and get this straightened out. And we can do it. We can do it together.