This Diwali, while many were immersed in festivities, one techie found his celebration abruptly halted by a widespread AWS outage. The incident left him on-call, unable to partake in the traditional lighting of diyas and bursting of firecrackers, a situation he vividly described on Reddit.
The user recounted his experience in a post titled, “Told them not to put me oncall for Diwali..see the mayhem now,” detailing how a conversation with his manager about being on call during the festival was dismissed with assurances that nothing would happen.
“Fast forward to tonight,” he wrote. “AWS is down. Teams are blowing up. Pager won’t stop ringing. My family think I work for the government because I’m handling some emergency. I haven’t even lit a single patakha yet, but my whole screen’s glowing red. Happy Diwali, I guess.”
The post quickly gained traction on Reddit, with many users expressing sympathy and relating to the demanding nature of tech jobs, especially during holidays. Comments highlighted the widespread impact of the outage, with one user noting that even major companies were affected and suggesting that personal disaster recovery plans not reliant on AWS would be key.
Many sympathized with the user’s embarrassment of working while family members were waiting, while others offered practical advice like “Acknowledge and ignore” unless directly involved with AWS’s own operations. The thread underscored the common challenge faced by IT professionals juggling festive occasions with critical work responsibilities, often leading to missed celebrations.