|
While listening to the
news on the radio today, I heard a story that added the last straw to my
proverbial camel’s back. My camel is now sagging low in the middle and
I’m hoping to get him medical attention as soon as possible, but only
after I get this off my chest. I know I am going to sound like I am on a
soapbox, but all I can do is warn you to watch out for the bubbles.
On the radio, the new
anchor was telling how a homeless man got a tax bill from the IRS for over
6 million dollars! While I hate taxes as much as the next guy (that’s
another story), I never dreamed that they would stoop so low as to ask for
money from homeless people! Anyway, it seems that the man worked at a
bowling alley doing odd jobs and got paid $35 bucks for his effort. The
news anchor then reported that the IRS had determined that a computer
glitch had mis-reported the earnings as over 2 million dollars producing a
tax bill with penalties that quickly added up to the 6 million they wanted
from the homeless guy. Now I don’t know how penalties could quickly turn
his bill into three times what he was originally supposed to have earned,
but my guess is that they have some hellish interest rates down there at
the IRS.
But none of the figures
were what pushed me onto my soapbox. No, what pushed me to pick up my pen
was the assertion by the IRS that the problem was caused by a computer
glitch. I have been programming for over 20 years and I can categorically
state that there is only one kind of glitch that can produce this error.
Logically, you can eliminate a true ‘program bug’ when you realize
that the problem only occurred on one person. A true program bug will
affect all data records the same way. Secondarily, if a data record can be
damaged when the data is saved, I would be concerned about faulty hardware
and again the problem would exist on more than one record. Finally, I have
never seen a program that worked perfectly 99.9999 percent of the time and
then suddenly for no apparent reason change the number 35 into 2,000,000.
It just ain’t gonna happen.
No, the only computer
glitch that I can see that could have caused this problem is a loose nut
on the keyboard. Ok, well maybe, there was a short between the chair and
keyboard. The fact of the matter is, with computers you have to always
remember, “Garbage In, Garbage Out.” This was not a computer glitch.
It was a user error.
Which brings me to the
point of this article. Computers are too dumb to defend themselves and
probably wouldn’t if they could. It’s just not in them. And so, I rise
on the soapbox to defend computers from the verbal abuse they receive for
errors that are truly not their fault. I know we have all done it. A
customer calls and wants that printout that you forgot to get for them, so
you tell a little white lie and say that the computer was down and you
couldn’t pull up the information, but you’ll get it out as soon as the
computer is fixed. Then you hang up the phone and promptly print out the
info and fax it to the client.
No one is hurt and no one
will say anything, because the computer is an inert object and incapable
of responding. In truth it is probably a good thing, because I am sure
that none of us wants our computer sneaking around behind our backs and
sending e-mails to our clients telling them the truth of what happened.
You wanted to go to the gadget sale down at the office supply store so you
chose to go there rather than doing your work.
But just because it is
easy to do, doesn’t make it right. Blaming a poor, defenseless computer
for your failings isn’t a good way to sleep well at night in the long
run. Frankly, it opens up a whole range of lies for anyone to use. Blame
the telephone for dialing the wrong number. Blame the freezer for the
missing ice cream. Just a few white lies like that and you’ll be blaming
the family dog for not taking out the trash.
Lying is a gateway vice
that leads to so many other faults. And blaming your computer for your
failures is just the start of an even bigger life of crime. I expected
more from the new and improved IRS.
Paul H. Tarver |
