Random reminder

Press, 15 November 1977, Page 29

Random reminder

THE GOLDEN HANDSHAKE

“Random Reminder’s” recent tale of the computer which refused to cancel a “Time” subscription in Sydney prompts a colleague to recount his adventures with a New Zealand Government computer.

Earlier this year our informant retired from the security of the Government sendee in Wellington and flung himself recklessly back into private employment in a South Island town. He bought an old house. Repairing it made him the darling of local tradesmen, and money was very tight. Each time he wrote a cheque, there was a hush for a few days while he waited for it to bounce. No bounce. When he had the courage to inquire from the bank he found he was hundreds of dollars in credit. Foolishly. perhaps, he asked that inquiries be made to locate the source of this flow of wealth.

Then it all came out. When he left the Public Service, from a department not ever so remote from tourism and publicity, the department's pay computer had refused to stop paying him. In fact, as soon as he had left, it gave him a raise and kept feeding enlarged pav cheques through the direct credit system.

As our informant tells it, the private enterprise computer in his Wellington bank had rubbed its fat little terminals together with glee and fired on his cheque to the bank's branch in the small South Island town. And hence his mysterious wealth. The extra credit was welcome; it helped to set his new house to rights. But once the tradesmen were paid our informant, an honest character, set about attempting to repay what was, for him an in-terest-free overdraft from his former-Government employers.

They took the money back fast enough, once everyone had explained in triplicate what had happened. They went even further; they kicked the Government pay-out computer and made it confess its errors.

Like a prisoner under pressure, the computer kept on confessing and finally admitted it had also overpaid our informant when he received his final holiday pay from the Government department. Now the department is trying to get that back, too. This final blow has left our informant throughly disillusioned with computers, and wondering if honesty was really the best policy. He's been chatting to the jolly little private enterprise computer in his local bank and for the moment, he says, he is going to leave the computers to sort out the final few dollars amongst themselves.