The darkness of the Journal-Sentinel Pravda is over the land.
...The Department of Workforce Development has secured $2.4 million in federal grant funding to begin the process of overhauling the state's 1970s-era computer system that failed to deliver timely benefits to hundreds of thousands of Wisconsinites during the coronavirus pandemic. ...
It was the computers.
Not the total lack of advance planning for the massive unemployment of the lockdown.
Not the failure of Evers to re-deploy unionized DWD employees so phones could be answered for more than 6 hours/day.
Not the failure of Evers to bring in additional unionized State employees to answer phones.
Nope.
It was the computers.
Guess what? It will ALWAYS be "the computers," too!!
...Amy Pechacek said the call center will be open 24 hours per day, every day by utilizing artificial intelligence technology to help residents with questions after call center staff are done with their shifts....
Because we all know how well THAT works when you call AT&T, right?
Don't you love that line 'done with their shifts'? Like emergency health, fire, police-services people are "done"? Like all those other private-industry employees who are "done" after 8 hours? (See, e.g., electric company people during serious weather events.) Like the IT staffers who work 24 hours at a crack to repair software glitches?
Oh--wait--they don't work for Evers and aren't part of the State Labor Union in the Emerald City.
More? Sure!! There's more!!
...Lawmakers and state officials knew in 2007 that the system to process unemployment claims needed an upgrade and in 2014 an audit showed that at one point up to 80% of calls to the Department of Workforce Development for help were blocked because of the system's limits...
2007.......lemmeeseeheah.........that was James Doyle's time. Hmmmm. And "the system's limits"? Anybody with 6 weeks' actual job experience can tell you that the system limits are programmed--and can be RE-programmed-- to allow more calls. But that might require stuff the Union (and the management) don't really want: actual work.
As to Walker? He never met a maintenance need that he wanted to fund. Never. Walker was a typical pol that way--shiny baubles good, fixing stuff bad.
The Madison Swamp--and its bootlicker press agents--lives on.
2 comments:
The average person does not realize just how outdated the hardware and software underlying most government and business is. Yes, a lot of it really is using 1970's technology. The people who designed such systems have been gone since at least the 2008-09 recession, and their heirs are tremendously downsized or outsourced, with the grueling task of maintaining legacy systems that no one understands or cares about, often reporting to careerists merry-go-rounding between assignments or sinecures.
Entire roads, many recently repaved, were destroyed in my area during the winter. The veneer of civilization is indeed tremendously thin. It would take very little to break down society to all out disorder.
Yes, a lot of it really is using 1970's technology.
So what? We landed men on the moon using 4K of RAM and the onboard IBM 360/DOS 1960's-era system was still operating just fine until ~10 years ago.
It was NOT a 'systems failure' just because the State is using 3090/MVS programmed in COBOL. Would it be nice to use 4GL's on server technology? Yes. Would the kiddies running the systems Feeeeeeeeeeel better? Yes.
Not my job to make them feeeeeeeeeeel better about the systems, whether hardware or software. The job of DWD management is to make it happen.
Sorta like Trump did.
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