Slashdot Mirror
Royal Bank of Canada Software Upgrade Goes Awry
Reader mks113 writes "Many Canadians living payday to payday have been in for a shock this week. Canada.com along with many other sources is reporting how thousands of customers have been inconvenienced following an unsuccessful software upgrade at the Royal Bank of Canada on Monday. All government employees (including me) in several provinces had their direct deposits delayed by a day or more." RBC has a comment on the mess.
I guess that bad karma is pretty sticky. Even selling their preferred A-1 shares to Baystar didn't save them.
My Canadian friends are screaming bloody murder. I don't blame them.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
Now you know where the old wisdom "Never touch a running system" comes from.
Geez, I'm showing my age again...
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I've heard a lot about this here in Canada over the past few days. Does anybody know what systems RBC was using, and what upgrade they were doing? It definitely seems suspicious that they were doing an upgrade at the *end* of the month (May), which is the busiest time for a bank (I know, from having worked at one). Was this really an upgrade gone wrong? Are there any more technical details?
"Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity"
You know, if she's been contacted THREE TIMES this week about payment, then she's at LEAST 2 months overdue. Going to blame the other 2+ months on the computer glitch that started on Monday? Besides, their Visa bills aren't actually DUE until about 7 working days into the month, so if she was up to date, then her payment wouldn't even be due yet.
No, that's just somebody who thinks the world owes them everything taking the opportunity to complain because it might get them something they don't really deserve.
Dark Nexus
"Sanity is calming, but madness is more interesting."
Nice planning: an end-of-month upgrade at a financial institution when, by their own admission, transactions are at their peak.
Maybe they thought they would broaden their QA testing base to, say 20,000,000.
Have you Meta Moderated t
No, this is management's fault. The only time a programmer fails is if something wasn't delivered on time, or they just don't produce, or their stuff doesn't make it past QC. Then fire them.
If bad code makes it into the wild, then somebody signed off on it. Somebody cut corners on testing. Somebody decided deadline is more important than quality. Somebody insisted it had to run the newest Microsoft code.
That somebody is the programmer's boss.
>Heads should roll for this one.
But are the "correct" heads going to roll?
>In cases like this, you should be lucky if you aren't held 100% liable.
If you were suppose to be held liable, do you think anything would change? Were any Professional Engineers held liable for the big blackout last year?
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
I totally agree. Most experts recommand that you have three to six months worth of funds saved up, which means that delay of payroll check deposit of a day, or even couple of weeks should be non-issue.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
For the longest time I was living from paycheck to paycheck. Compared to my friends I made some pretty good money for being 20 (30K/Yr) but it didnt seem like much when you were living on your own with rent, insurance, car payments, electric, cable, phone, water, and a girlfriend. Its amazing how things add up. It just so happens that I receive the first paycheck of the month on the same day that rent is due. After paying rent I'm left with about $100. It is also convenient that the second and last paycheck of the month is received on the same day that all of the bills are due. After paying them I'm left with $300. Note I havent mentioned the G/F tax yet but that one is expensive.
Anyway, my tip is, next time you get a bonus, tax returns, some lump sum of money, spend it on next months rent before you can do anything else with it. Trust me on this. If you put it in your savings you can too easily transfer it to checking when you see Wizz-Bang4000 on pricewatch for only $499! I do this every chance I get and it really helps out a lot.
Now if I could only figure out what to do with the SO.
Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the
Can you imagine working in that IT department right now. My first reaction when I saw this story was that I felt incredibly sorry for those IT guys and gals. Must be hell over there right now!
I know I always sweat when releasing new software, at least I don't have to worry about effecting the bank accounts of millions of people. That would truly be scary!
Corporate Gadfly
Jonathan Archer: the most beaten up Enterprise captain in Star Trek history
Yeah, it was probably written in the US :)
I would disagree. Yes you should double check, but doing thier job is 100% thier responsibility.
Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
This is insightful? I hope aardwolf was actually trying to be funny. Otherwise his "don't save money because it is too easy to spend savings" plan will have him working until the day he dies. Personally, my SO and I live off of one paycheck and put the other into some form of savings or another. Using this plan, we're aiming at having a million smackers in the bank before we're fifty.
Better still, this plan doesn't have us up Shit Creek when a paycheck (or twenty) is missed.
If you have such a serious problem with raiding your savings account direct deposit can be a great tool for you. Have a small chunk of each check sent into this savings account and never touch it. Never ever. Hell, you'd probably be better off if you didn't even open your bank statements for that account but once a year. Whatever you do, living month to month is not the answer.
Peter
Downsize DC Today!
Try being fresh out of college. How the hell are you supposed to have 6 months of funds saved up when you've only been working full-time for 2 or 3? I'm sure that will teach those pesky kids trying to pay their rent and student loans for not saving anything up. Bottom line not everyone has that luxury.
It's quite sad, really: any disagreement with you automatically means that I don't like Americans and any and all arguments can and will result in violence, in this case coupled with a strange assortment of insults, what I can only guess is a swipe at my sexuality, and a comment that shows your profound misunderstanding of geography. I must, however, point out that your message, such as it is, is getting garbled by your obvious mastery of grammar and spelling.
On behalf of the United States, I would like to appologize to anyone who was offended by the moronic poster who decided to insult our Northern neighbor, as well as assume that Canada is smaller then Texas. To the insulting poster - buy a globe, buy a hammer. Study the globe, and smash your keyboard so you can't type anymore.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.