Re: Date manipulation

docdwarf_at_panix.com
Date: 12/24/03

  • Next message: Judson McClendon: "Re: Date manipulation" 
    Date: 24 Dec 2003 08:57:48 -0500

    In article <gKOdnegEmebOB3SiRVn-hw@giganews.com>,
    JerryMouse <nospam@bisusa.com> wrote:
    >docdwarf@panix.com wrote:
    >> In article <43613b3050d91f187c2e51d26d71db6f@news.teranews.com>,
    >> Judson McClendon <judmc@sunvaley0.com> wrote:
    >>> "JerryMouse" <nospam@bisusa.com> wrote:
    >>>>
    >>>> Example: A large private medical clinic and hospital installed a new
    >>>> computerized billing system. One day the system printed out a bill
    >>>> for exactly $111.11 for every one of the more than 50,000 patients
    >>>> who had attended the clinic during the preceding year.
    >>>>
    >>>> Everybody working that day - operators, programmers, office clerks,
    >>>> and twelve employees specially hired to handle the unexpectedly
    >>>> large volume of bills to fold, stuff, and stamp them - did nothing
    >>>> to stop the error...
    >>>
    >>> This is an excellent example of why I *NEVER* give authorization for
    >>> companies to automatically take money from my checking account to
    >>> pay bills.
    >>
    >> Well... first off I have my doubts about any tale that cites an
    >> un-named company at an unspecified time... and I have my doubts about
    >> a story where the workload suddenly and unpredictably increases and
    >> *nobody* complains about More Stuff To Do...
    >>
    >> ... but this automatic credit/debit stuff can work to your advantage,
    >> if
    >> you have the audacity to, say, commit tax fraud; I remember a
    >> consulting
    >> gig I had at (un-named company) in Kansas City, MO in (unspecified
    >> time) where one hospital had just bought out another one and was
    >> converting the bought-out hospital's payroll system - McCormick &
    >> Dodge? - to their own in-house system. The buying hospital's
    >> programmers were confused by some
    >> odd results they were getting...
    >>
    >> ... and it turned out that the President of the bought-out hospital
    >> was
    >> the beneficiary of some rather... creative accounting; it seems that
    >> he'd
    >> had a pre-tax deduction applied to his payroll profile, one which
    >> would, every week, automatically take out one hundred pre-tax
    >> dollars...
    >>
    >> ... and then somehow - *must* have been an accident because *everyone*
    >> denied knowing *anything* about this - the VSAM file containing the
    >> employee profiles got changed... and the sign-nibble on the COMP-3
    >> field
    >> for this deduction went from negative to positive, giving the man a
    >> 'negative deduction'...
    >>
    >> ... so every time his paycheck was calculated the programs would
    >> subtract negative one hundred pre-tax dollars, in effect giving him
    >> an additional
    >> one hundred tax-free dollars.
    >
    >I, too, am skeptical of an anecdotal folk tale that does not identify the
    >salient facts but consist only of a city, an industry, and a claim of
    >eye-witness access.

    But *mine* can be verified by a Google search... see?

    <http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3574AD20.66B2%40erols.com&oe=UTF-8&output=gplain>

    DD

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