IMPORTANT: Denver Deja Vu's New Jersey

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Is this deja vu? Sounds similar to what happened in New Jersey.

From this morning's (April 9, 1999) issue of the Denver Post - front page:

"State Wants Food-Stamp Windfall Back"

"Computers at the state Department of Human Resources malfunctioned in late February and issued an estimated $1 million in food-stamp benefits to people who were not eligible for assistance in March.

"Bookland's was one of 5,800 households that received the ineligible credit. The error occurred while the department was revising programs written in 1972 and simultaneously preparing computers for the year 2000.

"It is not Y2K related even though we were changing date fields for Y2K at the same time we were rewritng programs," said Annie Mabry, systems manager of the State Food Stamp Program.

"Eisnach explained that while the programming proved successful in small sample tests, an error in computing remained that allowed clients that should be dropped from the food-stamp program to be paid anyhow.

"In late February, data were prematurely transferred to the disbursement vendor, Citibank, and applicants that had not been declared eligible for the money saw credits on their accounts.

"We found out about the error before the data was transmitted but couldn't find a way to stop the transmission,"said Eisnach. "This has nver happened before."

Although on the front page of ths morning's Post, we have not been able to locate same on their website (www.denverpost.com). Maybe it will be up later.

So let's see: They were working on Y2K date fields, but this is not a Y2K related event. Somebody must think that we were all born yesterday afternoon.

-- kalani & katiuska (kalani_hanohano@hotmail.com), April 09, 1999

Answers

K & K,

"It is not Y2K related even though we were changing date fields for Y2K at the same time we were rewriting programs," said Annie Mabry, systems manager of the State Food Stamp Program.

Hmmmm, and why else were they rewriting the programs EXCEPT for Y2K? I suspect given Ms. Mabrey's penchant for spinning, that if there was any other possible reason for pinning this error on any other programming issue, no mention would've been made of date fields.

"We found out about the error before the data was transmitted but couldn't find a way to stop the transmission,"said Eisnach. "This has never happened before."

No doubt...Y2K is a new experience for us all. Further evidence that these programming changes might not just be routine maintenance if these errors had not occurred before.

-- tex (justaguess@ranch.com), April 09, 1999.


"while the programming proved successful in small sample tests, an error in computing remained"

Gee, here's a surprise. NOT! Just one more reason why testing is so important. I wonder how many projects are pulling a few hundred records from a file, and using it as their test base. Full file testing may take hours, but a few hundred record test could take only seconds, and time is Y2K's enemy. Welcome to the real world! I expect to see many more stories like this. <:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), April 09, 1999.


Link.

-- Link (-@-.-), April 09, 1999.

Maybe New Jersey fired the person who typed in the wrong 'commands' and they moved to Denver, got a job because of their Welfare experience and made the same boo-boo.

or maybe it's Bozo the QA clown slamming untested fixes into production be some idiot mid manager is to cowardly to say that they're not ready.

Maybe it's Jo Anne Slaven ripping time-end bounds testing a new one (yes this does not match the formal definition of the Jo Anne Effect but it does sound like time-end bounds testing.)

Maybe this is what we call, a clue. The system goes bananas in February, this is April 9th.

This was a publicly exposed failure in a public organization. Thousands of people knew that something strange and wonderful was happening. Yippeee, we got free money!

Thousands knew but this is April 9th. I'm clueless, always have been, always will be. You were clueless too.

Thanks for the heads up. Will this clue in the denialists? Stay tuned as time slips away.

-- cory h (kiyoinc@ibm.net), April 09, 1999.


ROTFLMAO, Cory!!!!

-- Gearhead (2plus2@motown2.com), April 09, 1999.


Poor ol' cory - grabbin' at the proverbial straw. Hoping against hope that the world goes under - "EVERYTHING MUST be related to Y2K" goes his siren-song. The question must be - would you hire cory to renovate your non-compliant system?

Someone with this much invested in things goin' south? Someone who invests this much time in examining minutia on a public forum?

-- Y2K Pro (2@641.com), April 09, 1999.


"We found out about the error before the data was transmitted but couldn't find a way to stop the transmission,'' said Eisnach. "This has never happened before.''

Ah yes, practicing the line for January......

-- DQS (none@none..), April 09, 1999.


y2k prole

minutiae - as in your brain...

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), April 09, 1999.


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