Difficult knot stalled printing of Tuesday edition

At least one reader found hissef stumped by my Facebook posting describing our Tuesday production problems as having the “complexity of Gordian knot.”
Indeed they did. Somewhere in a malevolent conspiracy by our cloud-based subscription-classified-billing software and our antiquated, limited-capacity server plus application of one or more of Murphey’s Principles, including the one that says, “If it can go wrong, it will,” we, for the first time in our memory, missed a publication day.
Our Tuesday edition came out on Wednesday, and then only through the Herculean efforts of dedicated employees who were determined to overcome the problems. I don’t mean to get sappy here, but it has been humbling to see people, already in the throes of anticipating ownership change, so determined to stare old Murphey down.
With some it lasted for hours as they attempted to untie that knot through trial and error and phone software support. And only when the knot had finally been untied could we begin the production of the Tuesday edition. Once that started, every employee down the production chain that finally put the newspaper into your hands became involved. They waited long hours, then worked long and late hours to get the paper to press, from press to mailroom, through inserting, sorting and addressing to delivery and finally to you.
But when the question about the Gordian knot arose, it stumped me. I just knew that the Gordian knot was an expression used to describe a complex problem, nearly impossible to solve. I did not know this guy Gordy nor what he had tied with his knot.
Alexander the Great encountered the Gordian Knot, according to various Internet sources, when he marched his army into the capital city of Gordium, located in modern day Turkey. There he found an ancient wagon with its yoke so tied and tangled in knots that it was impossible to unfasten. An oracle had declared that any man who could unravel the knots was destined to become Asia’s ruler.
Alexander accepted the challenge and wrestled with it for a long time. Finally he stepped back, drew his sword and whacked the knot, slicing it in two with a single stroke.
Unfortunately, we had no sword. Our tech guy, Tripp Pepper, was forced to unravel the knot, one strand at a time until he finally untied the Gordian knot that bound us.