I worked for decades in Information Technology. I was on call for years but rarely was called, our systems were very reliable.
I was booked with the band Kidd Blue to play a Saturday afternoon outdoor show for a big event several years ago. Thousands of people were expected to attend. I was looking forward to the event. Some friends visited us that weekend; they were planning to appear at the gig/event the next day. I was on call for my regular job that weekend but wasn’t worried.
About nine p.m. Friday night, I received a call from work. A significant system was down. I couldn’t fix it from home. I left our friends with my wife, Barbara, and drove to work. I took my music gear with me. At the time, I lived over 40 miles from work, though we owned a home a few miles from work.
Long story short, one of our main servers had died, and a side effect was that people couldn’t pay us money online, which was a huge problem. I figured out it was a hardware issue in about five minutes, so I called the hardware vendor and spent several hours talking to a technician in Romania. He didn’t want to believe it was hardware, but finally gave up and agreed (thanks Oracle). We had 24/7 support, and I was terrified the vendor was going to repair the server during my show. I’d have to be there for that, which would probably ruin the gig. Luckily (for me), the vendor couldn’t get parts until Sunday. The local technician called and asked if he could wait until after church to show up, and I said, of course. More sleep for me.
I went to my nearby house and slept on the couch for a few hours. It was daylight by then. I drove downtown for the gig and was running on fumes. The show was a massive success, and the crowd was huge. I felt like passing out the whole time.
The next day I ate brunch with my friends, then went into work. The technician showed up and repaired the server by replacing parts. Suddenly it worked, and I was free.
A few months later, I told the bandleader I came close to missing the big gig, and he nearly had a stroke.
My work boss gave me Monday off. I slept much of the day.