Re: [OT] Musings After Go-Live


<docdwarf@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:d9ebmd$4n7$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> This isn't strictly about COBOL, mind you, hence the [OT].
>
> I subscribe to a listserv for the alumni... alumnae... alumnuoles... folks
> who graduated from my Alma Mater; we all subjected ourselves to an
> uncommon course of study and some of us still keep in contact. Anyhow, a
> short while back - 27 May, to be precise - I posted the following to the
> list; since traffic here's a bit slow I thought it might provide a bit of
> amusement to those whose job it might be, at time, to deal with such
> things.
>
> --begin quoted text:
>
> From docdwarf@xxxxxxxxx Fri May 27 09:09:26 2005
> Subject: Musings After Go-Live
>
>
> This might take a while... and it really doesn't go anywhere... so some
> folks might say it fits right in with the rest of my blitherings.
>
As if....:-)

> The project I've been working since November '03 went live at the
> beginning of the month. It's a delicate one, a Federal payroll system
> that cuts checks every other week for about sixty thousand people and has
> a rather primitive design dating back to the late '70s which has been
> modified so that it no longer cuts checks but passes data over to a
> different Federal agency.
>
> Rules for generating paychecks can be exquisitely simple; the following is
> valid COBOL code:
>
> COMPUTE OVERTIME-RATE = HOURLY-RATE * 1.5.
> COMPUTE REGULAR-GROSS = REGULAR-HRS * HOURLY-RATE.
> COMPUTE OVERTIME-GROSS = OVERTIME-HOURS * OVERTIME-RATE.
> COMPUTE GROSS-PAY = REGULAR-GROSS + OVERTIME-GROSS.
>
> ... and they can be horrifically complex... how do you calculate pay for a
> float-pool nurse from the Indian Health Service who reports regular hours,
> overtime hours, Sunday shift differential and paid holiday time in the
> same 24-hour shift? (Answer: it depends on whether they are covered by
> the union contract or not.) Add to this mixture the fact that these are
> peoples' paychecks being dealt with here, just about everyone looks at
> those closely and many are prone to make at least quiet murmurmings if the
> numbers are not to their liking.
>
:-)
Or even not turn up for work... <gasp>

> (Interchange from a meeting: 'You mean we've been paying these folks
> *wrong* for the past fifteen years? How did that happen, why didn't
> anyone *say* anything?' 'We coded that according to the specs that came
> down in the '88 revision... and not too many people are going to say
> anything if their paychecks are larger than expected.')
>

ROFL! I absolutely LOVED this... Says a lot about system audits, checks and
balances (pardon the pun) and the testing and handover procedures...
especially liked the defense "We did it according to spec.".... So, I have
to ask: If the person writing the spec had included in it that certain
checks, for certain amounts, would be produced under certain random
conditions, and these checks just happened to be payable to said spec writer
(or cronies), would this then have been programmed into the system also? If
the answer is "yes", then I'd like to know if there is any chance of getting
a job there; if the answer is "no", then the defence above is invalidated.

And what about handover? No-one in the user department even noticed? No base
case checking? On a Federal Financial system? Still, it is delightful to
think that everyone was overpaid for 15 years... Of course they paid more
tax than they should have too, and those taxes go to finance Feder.... uhhh
.....lost it. :-)

> Anyhow... it was a large project and it is has gone live... and
> consultants/contractors/hired guns are starting to be let go. I, in part,
> am responsible for this... and it makes me feel... odd.
>
> Back in the Oldene Dayse computerising an operation used to make people
> *very* upset... The Computer's Stealing My Job! I put this into an
> historical perspective... back in the Even More Oldene Dayse the ability
> to add up a long column of figures, accurately and in a legible hand, was
> a valuable skill. Companies had entire roomsful of clerks, standing at
> their stations, totting up bills of lading with their quills... and these
> clerks had, by the standards of those days, pretty decent jobs; their
> working-conditions were better than those of the laborers, they earned a
> better wage than the laborers and they were granted better social status
> than the laborers.
>
> Then came mechanical tabulating engines... ummmmm, adding-machines... and
> things changed. One no longer needed the mathematical skills nor the
> ability to maintain penmanship over extended hours, just needed to hit the
> buttons accurately... and output increased, one person hitting buttons
> could wade through a bunch more stuff than several folks writing numbers.
>
> What happened? If your only skill was the ability to add up long columns
> of figures accurately and present the results in a legible hand... the
> machine took your job. Computers seem to follow in this tradition.
>
> Now... the system I worked on converting takes input from four feeder
> systems, each of the feeders supplies data in a common format... but each
> of the feeders sends bad data down the line. As mentioned above the rules
> for paying people vary and what are invalid data for one person might be
> valid for another... rather than doing the Work to make sure that these
> rules are applied on the front-end to provide clean data folks follow Rule
> Number Zero ('Nobody wants to do any work') and send trash down the line.
> The folks who receive the trash complain, of course... but the recipients
> do not have the authority to cause change on the front-ends and are
> subject to the 'touched it last' rule; a pile o' crap gets dumped in their
> laps and it is up to them to make sure that folks get paid so folks don't
> get upset.
>
> Still with me?

Hanging on every word... :-) (Seriously, it is very interesting and well
written...)


> What has resulted from this is a sub-group of
> consultants/contractors/hired guns who have as their only job the
> responsibility of taking the incoming data, loading them to small
> databases (Oracle) and dealing with bad data and the resulting
> complaints... something will go wrong, someone will file a trouble-ticket
> and these folks will look at the data and say 'Oh, Timekeeper Joe sent us
> down some trash'... and they'll fix up their data, generate an
> extract-file and send this extract back into the main processing-stream to
> generate corrections. They're nice people, this sub-group... a small
> company composed of Mr Brahmagupta, his wife, her sister-in-law, a couple
> of other folks from their neighborhood... all competent in what they do
> and pleasant-enough to work with.
>
> Now things have changed. This agency is no longer cutting the checks, all
> data are being sent to a different Federal agency... so instead of the
> feeder-system files going into these small databases I modified an ungodly
> ugly program to be even more ugly - not too large, a bit more than 15,000
> lines of code, but what it lacks in size it makes up for in
> unattractiveness - to process them and send the data off in order that the
> different agency can deal with them.
>
> My code has rendered the work this sub-group does unnecessary. Today is
> their last day on-site.
>

Completely understand how you feel. Been there. Console yourself with the
fact that you did a job and did it fairly and to the best of your ability.
The fact is that if you hadn't, someone else would have. Also there is no
doubt that when the sub-group started this service, it wasn't going to be
for life...

I think most of us have (certainly the ones with any imagination, never mind
sensitivity) agonised over stuff like this. It is even harder when you
develop or implement systems that put programmers out of work. (I've done
that and realised that I was one of those who would be rendered redundant by
software I had designed and built.). There is no bucking progress. Our job
is to see that computer technology makes the company more competitive and
makes life easier for the people working in the company.

Sometimes it works the other way; capacity increases with better efficiency
and the company expands and takes on more staff. (Seen that, too). It's all
a bit of a dice throw... the days of guaranteed jobs for life are long gone,
even in Japan which was one of the the last bastions of the 'Company family'
philosophy.


> On the one hand... hey, that's the consultant's life, the work comes, the
> work goes, time to find another job. On the other hand... my work has
> caused other folks to have to look for new jobs. This makes me feel...
> odd.
>
At least you are considering it. Time to quit when you become so completely
dispassionate that it never even occurs to you.


> On the third hand... the system went live at the beginning of May and
> there are still bugs to be worked out and modifications to be made, some
> consultants are being kept on to deal with this. Who gets to stay,
> though, depends on what kind of budget can be maintained... and budget
> negotiations are slow, delicate things... and in the meantime contracts
> for consultants are expiring. This leads to conversations like the one I
> had with a different consultant last week:
>
> Him: Heard anything about renewals?
>
> Me: Not a word... as far as I know my contract expires on the 31th. I'd
> like to show up for work on the 1st... but nobody can tell me if I'll get
> paid if I do.
>
> Him: Same here... well, is there anyone else who can run the jobs you've
> put together?
>
> Me: Sure, anyone who can read code... my project-leader and I have been
> working together through all of this, he ain't bad at what he does... he
> ain't *me*, of course. I try to make sure, though, that anything I write
> can be handled by a 2-year programmer... that's just the way I do things.
>
> Him: (superior smirk) That's not always the best for *you*, you know... in
> my case it is different, I don't think there's anyone here who can handle
> what I've put together.
>
>

I have encountered this attitude in various places, too, Doc. It is world
wide, not just confined to any one place. There are always the insecure
individuals who believe they are indispensible and have worked towards
making themselves so... Invariably, they get replaced, or removed, or
bypassed. No corporation (or even SME, for that matter) wants a gun at its
head. People who want to make careers in commerce realise that unless they
document what they have done and/or train a replacement, there is no chance
of them being promoted. It makes sense to share expertise. But there are
those, like the guy you're outlining, who believe it is unwise.

> Me: Eh... 'job security throught idiosyncratic knowledge' isn't how I deal
> with things, I pride myself on writing stuff that people will look at and
> say 'This is so *simple*... why did we pay him so much to do it?'
>
> Him: (smirk and head-shake) That's one way to do things... it can make for
> trouble, though, when renewal-time comes.
>
> Word came down about renewals yesterday. I'm good for another three
> months, at the Final Go-Live Farewell Luncheon yesterday the Project
> Director told me that this was really a stopgap and that once things
> settle there'll be more stuff for me, they want me around for the problems
> that are sure to arise when they close the books for the year in
> December...
>
> ... the other guy? He doesn't come back on Wednesday.
>
> --end quoted text

I hope he finds another job and is wiser next time.

Really interesting post, thanks for sharing it.

Pete.



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