7 Aug
2008
7 Aug
'08
2:33 p.m.
Date: Thu, 07 Aug 2008 11:19:33 -0700
From: Eric Smith <eric at brouhaha.com>
Chuck Guzis wrote:
When anyone with a tech company says "We can't find anyone to do X" what
they really mean is "We can't find any new graduates to do X" because
heaven forbid they should hire an older (like over 35) worker. There are
plenty of older tech experienced folks working at hardware stores, who
would jump at an entry level tech salary, but for some reason, human
resource drones in tech companies are universally convinced that they
would be too expensive or otherwise a poor choice. Sigh. <happy I have a
good job finally>
It's the same story as a few months back when B. Gates went before
congress and asked for more H1Bs claiming he couldn't find any
programmers.
Jeff Walther
"COBOL programmers are hard to come by these
days," said Fred Forrer,
the Sacramento-based CEO of MGT of America, a public-sector
consulting firm. "It's certainly not a language that is taught.
Oftentimes, you have to rely on retired annuitants to come back and
help maintain the system until you're able to find a replacement."
It's not at all hard to find COBOL programmers, and they are NOT all
retired. Offer a decent salary, and you'll get them. What the state is
specifically trying to do, though is to cut everyone's salaries, so how
likely is it that they'll offer a good salary to a COBOL programmer.
The real story is that it's a bunch of political posturing. 
7 Aug
7 Aug
6:13 p.m.
An easy way to see that the California stories is about lying managers
rather than about COBOL is this:
In the 20-30 years that software has been used, there surely have been
some pay raises.
Did it take 6 months each to put those into effect? Of course not.
Ok, so it can't take 6 months to put a pay cut into effect, either.
QED.
paul
6:41 p.m.
On Thu, Aug 7, 2008 at 8:13 PM, Paul Koning <Paul_Koning at dell.com> wrote:
An easy way to see that the California stories is about lying managers
rather than about COBOL is this:
In the 20-30 years that software has been used, there surely have been
some pay raises.
Tempting to jump on, but there might be transactional support for percentage
or flat pay changes that would require no source changes, while the flat
adjustment across the board could well require a source change,
recompilation, relinking and the concomitant testing and auditor approvals.
Michael
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