Cross-System Equivalency Card

A document drafted to read,
Before any human might need.
It sat in the file,
For quite a long while,
And gathered the dust of the deed.

The auditor noted the change,
In wording that humans arrange.
The action was wrong,
But syntax was strong,
So nothing was marked as too strange.

The cert on the cabinet door,
Was printed in nineteen-ought-four.
It covers the space,
With confident grace,
Though quality lives here no more.

We stood to acknowledge the queue,
As ritual demanded we do.
The forms were all signed,
The roster aligned,
And nothing was added anew.

The Exalted who carries the key,
To cabinets no one can see.
He guarded the door,
For decades or more,
To hide the blank ledger’s decree.

A timestamp was off by a day,
The manager halted the play.
The sirens deployed,
The schedule destroyed,
To file the new errors away.

The charter was written in pen,
And routed to somebody’s den.
The cycle passed by,
With no reason why,
And then it was Tuesday again.

We do not use handshakes in here,
The rules of the transfer are clear.
You fold up the card,
And press very hard,
To make your credential appear.