---
title: The Service is Already Down
date: 2018-10-13
series: stories
---

# The Service is Already Down

The master said to their apprentice: "come, look and let's load production". The apprentice came over confusedly, as the dashboards above showed everything is fine.

"What about it?"

The master turned over to a browser and typed in a linear sigil and hit "ENTER" on the keyboard. Production loaded successfully. The master started to chuckle gently and spoke: "This is our production frontpage. Customers start their journey with us here. It isn't the most beautiful page, but it works, apparently. However, even though the dashboards above show it is up, to me the service is already down. Every time this frontpage loads I feel the perfection of it. I feel the simple moments of all the millions of gears falling into alignment across so many places on the planet for that brief moment, never to be seen together in the exact same configuration again. Even though those gears sometimes get rusted or break and need to be replaced. But because it is imperfect, it is perfect and I am so grateful that I get to share a lifespan with it; nevertheless shape and empower it. Try it."

The apprentice looked at the browser and said to themselves "the service is already down" and hit refresh. Production loaded successfully. The apprentice was filled with awe at the simplicity of it all, despite its inherent complexity. And then the apprentice understood and was silent.

---

Synthesized from [The Cup is Already Broken](https://write.as/excerpts/this-cup-is-already-broken) from an SRE standpoint.
