Please understand that this poem is tongue-in-cheek and that our staff is working harder than elves on a deadline. I needed to take some liberties with reality to make the poem work. It's Christmas and my friends got together and bought me an artistic license. I thought I'd use it... :) Happy Yule y'all!

T'was the week before Christmas and all through the office,
Not a creature was coding, not even the bosses,
The staffs' stocking feet were propped on their neighbor's chair,
In the hopes that their managers simply don't care.

The servers were nestled up high in their racks, all safe behind firewalls, in case of attack.
Ross in his jammies with rum in his cup, had just settled down to toast his good luck.
When suddenly the phones erupted with clatter, Ross sprang to the office to see what was the matter.
Over to his computer he flew like a flash, only to witness Google's great crash.

The Florida Update, like fast falling crap, had spammed out the listings and made us look bad.
And what, to his wondering eyes should appear, but a bunch of affiliate links selling cheap gear.
With midi music drivers and bangles and bongs, the spam sites abounded, exploded beyond,
Reasonable expectations of Google users, advertisers and such,
All Ross could say was "Gosh, how this sucks".

We had a problem, Ross thought at that time, something shared with everyone working online.
If Google is broken what would we do, our clients will blame us and they'll feel Scrooged!
More rapid than instant messaging generally allows, Ross called in the staff to figure it out.
The algo at Google has changed for the worse, they've taken submissions and turned out a curse,
Is it a filter, an algo, a joke or a blip? Whatever the cause, we need answers quick!

The staff got together and thought about where,
To conduct our good business, which is based on free air,
On Teoma, AltaVista, Lycos and Jeeves, Yahoo AOL MSN, Espotting and these,
Are not the only options, that's just absurd, We'll recommend Overture and even AdWords.

Jim's checking Google at least once an hour, he's pulling his hair out and wearing a scowl,
Scott's writing ad copy while Dave's selling plans, Ross is researching to see if we can,
Reverse engineer Google's Florida stew, before other listings start to fall through.

When from Jim's office the staff heard him laughing, uproariously giggling jumping and dancing,
"I think it's a mistake, misstep or a bug, Google had a major hole they were trying to plug,
If I'm wrong we are no worse off than anyone else, Google won't update before January 12th.
But if I'm right, we save clients some worry and we can tell them their listings will return in a hurry,
As soon as Google updates itself, the world should be normal and products will sell!"

Perhaps this will teach us that one basket is sound, provided the carrier has both feet on the ground.
Maybe search users will start trying the rest since Google keeps proving it isn't the best
In the end it should work out, we hope for the right,
'Till then, Merry Christmas to all after Florida's big byte.

Seasons Greetings from your Friends at StepForth!

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