This brings back memories of when we picketed our COBOL professor christmas party with signs of:

"COBOL raises taxes"

we couldn't have been more right

The programmers of California have created the greatest payroll application of all time. You can only raise salaries, not lower them. Ingenious!

I need a COBOL programmer, who is your daddy and what does he do?

A story about firing employees and Ahnold and you didn't use "Terminated"?

I'm not sure whether to be relieved or outraged.

This is a delicious irony here. It's great. It's almost enough to coin a phrase "Don't attribute reprieve from malice to that which can be explained by incompetence."

We have about 20 Cobol programmers. We still run CISC and what have you. You can have them. Cheap.

Just Terminate a percentage of those state employees.

PWN3D YR PAYROLL.

I wonder if the guy who maintains the COBOL is sitting in an SF jail right now - he'll only tell the Mayor what the name of the right functions are..

They created the worst payroll application of all time... it takes 50% longer to raise them back!

How soon can you get on a plane to California?

"A computer without COBOL and FORTRAN is like a piece of chocolate cake without ketchup or mustard." --John Krueger

The Governator is getting paid an annual salary of $1 a year. If his pay went down any further you'd probably end up with a divide by zero error somewhere.

My Step Grandfather was a COBOL programmer. He's 86 now. He...hasn't kept up with any developments in the field. He doesn't know what a database is. Or Unix. He knows the IBM 360 pretty well though.

Sounds like a typical COBOL programmer to me.

Hell, where I work now we're having problems because a particular CBT REQUIRES a floppy disk. Nobody can get the money to have the CBT code changed. The new computers don't come with floppy drives and the old computers are required to be taken out of service. Emulation software can't be used because it won't pass the "approval process" and putting a floppy drive into a new system voids the maintenance agreement.

No, the problem is that someone put a T-800 series Terminator in charge of California!

All the state's COBOL programmers have to work around the clock just to keep that early-80's piece of shit working.

so, they passed the buck to you :)

really, the reason nobody can find old cobol programmers to do the work is because they know the mess they left behind and they won't touch it with a 10' pole.

They need to update to more advanced frameworks. Like COBOL on Cogs.

how about $6.55 an hour and then once the budget is approved, we'll pay you the rest?

not some dip shit who read Databases And Java For Dummies and thinks he actually knows something.

It was the Complete Idiot's Guide, thank you very much.

You! COBOL programmers! Get in the chopper!

It's called a typo. Go slam keys on your 3270.

Thanks for linking to the Wikipedia article on Jurassic Park, I've never heard of that movie before. Or it's sequel. Or it's sequel's sequel. Or the books. Or the multiple theme park rides.

You made that post that from work, didn't you?

A COBOL-savvy man suffers from a deadly disease and decides to go for cryonics, hoping they will find a cure in the future. A hundred years from now they wake him up. He's relieved and asks: "Thank god, you've found a cure." - "No", they tell him, "we're short of COBOL programmers."

Sorry, they already have a budget crisis.

I saw a job posting requiring 15 years of active directory experience. I sent them a resume' for Sam Beckett.

In COBOL that's:

USE JOKE MISSING OVERHEAD SOUND(FWOOSH).

except that slashdot's too many caps lameness filter is also written in COBOL.

More accurately, to program in cobol, you wouldn't have to pay me a salary, you'd have to pay compensation for mental pain and anguish.

No, the ideal cadidate is still a 22 year old college graduate.

All you need is 25 years of Java and .Net experience to back those credentials.

If I was in charge of programming the new pay system, I wouldn't be too worried about me making minimum wage...

So... Listen.

I have a job for you in California I need to take care of. Come with me if you want to live.

I'll GOBACK

Wonder why they can't find any Cobol programmer? There are probably Cobol programmers on the state payroll maintaining this system, but do you want to modify a computer program, so your employer can cut your pay by 75%? Didn't think so.

Manager: I need you to modify our payroll system in order to cut your pay to a mere $6.55/hour. How quickly can you get that done?

Developer: I'll get right on it boss. Let's see, I'll have to modify the payroll routines, reconfigure the database, change out the bit buckets, and scronge the verbliz... That will take me... Er, how long do you think it will be before the state passes a budget?

Manger: Probably in about 5 months.

Developer: It'll take me about 6 months.

I'll bet you a donut to your paycheck that if the legislature passed a resolution that the shortfall would come out of that person's budget until it was resolved, you would start hearing about solutions instead of excuses.

Has anybody from California tried to hire you yet?

And just where do they think they will find a COBOL programmer working for minimum wage?

He's not really a Republican. He was just built by Democrats to look like a Republican. The chip inside is really a Democrat.

They need a COBOL programmer to assign everybody's wages to minimum.

But when he's done, whatever he sets his own wages to, he'll apparently be the only one who can change it.

COBOL Programmer - come with me if you want to live!

alias 'pretty please'='sudo --dont-ask-for-password-because-i-dont-have-it'

sudo make me a sandwich!

Going by an eBay auction of an old box of the stuff, the cereal pieces look dinosaur shaped.

Personally, I'd make them human shaped so the kids could play at being dinosaurs and eat all the humans. You know that's what they'd really want :)

I prefer the flamethrower.

~X~

<nazi type="grammar">
alias 'sandwitch'='sandwich'
</nazi>

> They need to update to more advanced frameworks. Like COBOL on Cogs.

How about Mono on Monorails?

Haskell on Handrails?

BASIC on Beams?

Python on Pillars?

C++ on Conveyors?

GRASS on Girders?

Scheme on Scaffolding?

Lisp on Lintels?

REBOL on Rebar?

Assembly on ...er...

Easy. Make them terrorist shaped.

Python on a Plane