D’oh! Paycut and then fire ‘em, Arnie!
Facing a state budget crisis in July, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger fired about 10,000 temporary and part-time workers and ordered the 200,000 permanent employees to be paid only the minimum wage of $6.55 an hour until the legislature passed a crisis-solving budget. However, a week later the State Controller John Chiang pointed out that state payroll records could not be changed to accommodate the cut because they were written in the antiquated COBOL computer language, and virtually the only state employees who knew the code were some of the part-timers Schwarzenegger had just fired.
HAHAHAHA Auhnold – bite me!
absolutely. what raceynora said.
That budget needs steroids!
Also, http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/5276/arniepsjq4.jpg
Did anybody point out to Arnie that he is a temp?
That is too rich. hahahahahahahaha.
Those fired employees could be in line for some lucrative consulting contracts.
How much longer does this fuckwit have in office?
Dusty – for us who live here: TOO DAMN LONG
In the real world, when budgets fail, people get laid off. His move seemed rational to me.
How the hell was doughboy supposed to know his state’s payroll system was older than he is?
There’s probably a decent story there behind how that ancient COBOL database has been allowed to continue to exist.
Dan virtually every bank in the world (including the Fed) uses an IBM database called IMS that is written in COBOL and assembler and runs on mainframes; it is the industry standard because of scalability, speed, security, and dependability; even in newly developing economies like China, Brazil, and Russia are using it. This is one of the reasons why Ahhhhhhnold’s decision making process was just astonishing – they had to have known, someone in the CA bureaucracy had to have known. Regards, Tengrain
Thanky Tengrain, I love the site and the humor and the snark, it’s perfect…
At university I worked at, we started movin away from COBOL a decade ago. It was a kick you in the nuts stab you in the back fight though. because those who DO Cobol, weren’t real good at SQL.
What would Arnies CS discipline be in? Is he a database specialist? Security? Perl?
Aaaah, he’s just the production room grunt working the racks and changing tapes…
Ya see….makin fun of Arnie is fun. But this one’s on his staff fer not tellin him about this little inconvenient point.
What are the odds he fires more union nurses to pave the way for a peoplesoft migration?
Dan -
I agree with your analysis – and again, I think you reinforce my point. Someone knew and they did not tell him.
I do disagree with one point: the union nurses will go so he can pay for more prisons.
Regards,
Tengrain
Skippy The Bush Kangaroo made one of the most valid points yet the other day when Popeye declared a “financial emergency” in California: Last time we had one of those, we recalled the governor.
Since things are worse now than they were then, we probably need to be considering it again.
Welcome to MPS, Tom. It is good to have you with us. Yes, I heard recently that he was thinking about raising the car registration fees, which as I recall was one of his rallying cries for throwing Gray Davis out on his ass. But I think next to “the invisible hand of the marketplace,” the next biggest lie of the GOP is about how they can balance the budget through cutting waste, fraud and abuse out of the budget. So, Ahhhhhhnold, where is it? Rgds, Tengrain
Good Lord! Isn’t it about time the updated that shit? o.O