Old technology foils Schwarzenegger's wage order

Yahoo News ^ | 3 July 2010 | CATHY BUSSEWITZ

[cynwoody]

Usually the old code and databases are easier to deal with. Simple binary tree structures, pointers, easy DB2 or Cobol as a language.

In DB2, the solution to California's problem is particularly short and sweet. Two words, in fact:

DELETE Employees

[Richard Kimball]

Reminds me of when I was living in New Orleans in the seventies. The dirty tricks were rampant. When the cops went on strike, there was a computer glitch and they didn't receive their last paychecks for work prior to the end of the strike.

When the garbage workers went on strike, someone went around putting flyers on thousands of doors that said the garbage workers union did not want citizens to suffer while they were on strike, and to dump your garbage on the front lawn of the garbage worker union hall, and they would dispose of it. The flyer included a map to the hall. The union hadn't issued the flyers, but ended up with several tons of garbage on their front lawn. Government is like a car wreck. You don't want to watch, but you can't help yourself.

[Oldeconomybuyer]

California is a clusterblank.

[cynwoody]

No, you don’t get it. And, that’s fine. It’s obviously not your line of work. Showing such disdain for the people who work to implement a very complex system, so complex that it’s difficult for many people to understand, is rude.

LOL! You're trying to solve the wrong problem, namely, fixing the old system so that it can do what the Governator wants.

The proper course of action is to do something along the lines of what Truth29 suggests in #20. Scrape a basic employee file off the old system (using Ruby or Python) and export it to ADP with instructions to pay all employees at the minimum wage. Then sort out the details later, once the state is back in the black.

[vbmoneyspender]

Showing such disdain for the people who work to implement a very complex system, so complex that it’s difficult for many people to understand, is rude.

I'm not being rude - I am agreeing with you. Everyone knows what you are saying is correct - it is impossible to get state employees to program a decrease in their state salaries.

[steve86]

Perhaps the problem is their programmers are not familiar with the minus sign.

Could be, selectively. I bet they know how to subtract State of California deductions, child support and garnishments, though.

[The Cajun]

Tell the "State Controller" to do it, if he doesn't, send the state troopers or what ever the hell they have in California to arrest him and appoint somebody who can make the change........Problem solved and Rat arrested.

[reg45]

Probably written in COBOL.

[reg45]

Why not apply a salary increase of -20%.

[BwanaNdege]

COBOL takes 40 lines of code to say “Hello World”.

[dfwgator]

COBOL takes 40 lines of code to say “Hello World”.

Immediately followed by a S0C7.

[reg45]

Cumbersome, Obsolete, Badly Organized Language

[Richard Kimball]

IIRC, in the 70s, the National Hockey League used mainframes to keep their databases. There was a story that one team assigned a player “0” and it cost 10K to enter it into the computer, as the database had originally only been set up to accept player numbers 1-99. The only article I read was a mainstream press account and didn’t include any details, so take it for what it’s worth.

[bert]

The solution is simple. just don’t pay them every week. or once every two months or something to reduce the effective rate.

[rolling_stone]

Should have been fired in 2008 and again in 2009...

August 2008

Chiang contends that although he is permitted to pay the minimum wage during a budget impasse, he is also allowed to pay an employee’s full salary. Even if he wanted to comply, CHIANG SAID, IT WOULD TAKE 10 MONTHS TO CONFIGURE HIS AGENCY’S OUTDATED COMPUTER SYSTEM TO DO WHAT THE GOVERNOR IS ASKING.

(page 3)
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/aug/01/local/me-arnold1

[The Theophilus]

Sounds like lies to me. They probably have absolutely no problem implementing any union contract demands made, and those things run into the thousands of pages.

What I think would probably save more money than an hourly pay reduction, would be to make each State employee physically come to the office and personally pick up the cheque.

It would be fun to see how many ghosts are still receiving a salary.

[I am Richard Brandon]

It's in the book letter:

" the controller's office said it would take at least six months to reinstate workers' full pay"

[reg45]

COBOL, the rest is irrelevant.

[I am Richard Brandon]

"John Chiang should be fired, on the spot, for incompetence."

But, but, but ... he's a Democrat!

[ichabod1]

I wonder how they were able to program all of the pay increases they have received over the past 40 years?

HA! They probably discovered that the field used to enter a percentage pay INCREASE would not accept a negative number.