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To: Bloody Sam Roberts

I’m not a code guy, but my wife was a COBOL programmer before we had kids. Your meme reminds me of a story she told me. She worked for a large car leasing firm that could place orders directly into the car companies systems. One of her co-workers was modifying a program and flagged a car order for a test. Naturally, she ordered the biggest and most expensive car Chrysler made at the time, plugged in a bunch of option and paint color codes, none of which probably matched and sent in the order.

Somebody at Chrysler saw the order, thought the test flag was a mistake and removed it. By the time she noticed, the car was in the order queue and it was determined to be cheaper to make it and scrap it than to try to remove it from the queue. Ooops.


25 posted on 10/22/2015 6:35:30 AM PDT by cyclotic (Liberalism is what smart looks like to stupid people.)
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To: cyclotic
By the time she noticed, the car was in the order queue and it was determined to be cheaper to make it and scrap it than to try to remove it from the queue. Ooops.

Wow. I worked at a GM Assembly Division plant many years ago and saw something like this happen once or twice.

They didn't even try to remove the car from the line. They simply found the manifests in several parts of the plant (cushion room, paint, frame line, etc) and pulled what they could...like seats...and covered frames and such with blue tarps and let the thing ride to the final line...then they would move it aside. Mistakes happen. But to complete a car and then scrap it? Odd.

32 posted on 10/22/2015 7:16:33 AM PDT by Bloody Sam Roberts (Democracy is not freedom. Democracy is simply majoritarianism. It is incompatible with real freedom.)
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