Thursday, January 10, 2008

Paper Beats DOS - What I Did At Work Today

It was a bizzare phone call that I could not believe a person had the guts to make. A former employee found a payroll check that had not been cashed from January of 2001 and wanted it reissued.

IT was called in because that data was stored in the old DOS program. We have only 1 license for that system anymore, so I am usually involved when data is needed out of those archives.

After much research into the check, we discovered that all records for that fiscal year had been purged 3 years later. So we were left to have him return the check for reissue. Personally I didn't agree he should be repaid, but others in authority did. The whole thing bothered me. What if it had already been reissued? So it was down into the basement. It took myself and the office manager (who did think he should be paid) only about 20 minutes, and we were victorious in finding the 2001 PAPER payroll records.

As we looked through the 2001 Paper backup, low and behold there was the signed check stop form with his reissued check number!!! AWESOME! The old DOS system failed us, BUT paper was king!!!!

As IT I think it is great, we got beat by paper!!! sometimes, the old fashioned solutions, are the most dependable!

2 comments:

Carris Family said...

classic man, I love it...
Rob Carris

gerbmom said...

I work IT in our elementary school. One day a couple kids were at the computer searching the internet for something. After about 15 minutes of frustration they gave up the search. I ask what they were looking for. I don't remember exactly what the statistic was concerning a former president, but I walked over to the book shelf and handed them that presidents biography - statistic included..... :)