re: Fired IT employees sue LSU

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. It uses the outdated programming language of COBOL

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Ah yes. COBOL. I learned about this programming language in high school computer class when it was the hot new thing.

In 1986

I love my alma mater, but damn if it isn't embarrassing sometimes.

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Could be, but those don't sound like project titles to me. They sound like administrator title. I might be wrong.

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Ballinger was specifically hired to lead LSUs modernization efforts. She brought the others along with her for the express purposes of being the team leaders for that project

The fact she had a team ready to join her at LSU experienced in SIS modernizations was part of the reason LSU was excited about hiring her

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What do you base that assertion on?

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common sense.

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OK, so basically your own opinion

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Not sure what industry you work in or what level of professionals you work with

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i work on projects globally.

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OK, but I assume not in an industry where job locations and duration are very fluid?

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The rent where they work and live there at least 4 days a week, often more, and commute to their family home whenever they can (distance impacts the frequency). Most were texas to Louisiana but one is Colorado to Louisiana. A couple of the Texas to Louisiana were Permian basin to Lafayette area. People do this for various reasons, usually kid/school related.

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do you understand laws state, to have this job, you must live in LA, and register your vehicle in LA. This is a job for a state funded school, not some corporate company. I dont see how you dont see the difference.

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I get that is a state law, a fairly recent one though in place prior to the hiring. I suspect no one would have had any heartburn if the law only required they register any vehicle they primarily used in the state, they lived here, had an address here and paid utilities and state taxes here in a manner that would have qualified them to pay in state tuition at LSU by the time that they were let go.

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I dont see how you dont see the difference.

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I see the difference but these were people who came from the private sector (IIRC) and did not know about the state law, I honestly think the folks that hired them at LSU may not have known either.

My understanding here is that these folks were hired, the top person in particular, because of their expertise in the particular data migration that the job was tasked with.

What I don't get is why LSU didn't contract these people instead of direct hiring them. Probably due to some state law as well? That type of one time migration would have almost always been handled by outsourcing in the private sector. Outsourcing is much more effective for limited scope projects like this.

MY whole point here is that LSU definitely dropped the ball if they did not spell out for these employees the expectation s they had. And the state of Louisiana is being ridiculous if the expect someone to register a car in Louisiana that never even makes it to this state. Particularly if it is being driven by someone else in another state. By Louisiana's own laws, if a person here did that, registered there car in another state and drove it here for more than ten days (I think), they would be in violation of the law.

The primary thing I think the lawsuit is seeking is not having to repay the moving expenses for a move they undertook in good faith due to lack of information presented by LSU.

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Ah yes. COBOL. I learned about this programming language in high school computer class when it was the hot new thing.

In 1986

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That was probably COBOL-85, the latest release at the time. I think there were significant compatibility issues between it and previous editions.

COBOL itself has been around since 1959. By 1970 it was the most widely used programing language in the world.

I'm not a programmer (well, not a high level programmer) or computer scientist, this just from my reading about systems and programming languages so anyone please correct anything I have wrong. I did have a couple of friends in computer science in the early 80s when I took Fortran as part of my engineering curriculum. Those guys hated Cobol, but mostly because the compiling took so long back then and one syntax error could cost you loads of time.

The last COBOL update was 2014, I believe. I suspect they likely have compatibility issues everytime a new standard comes out as well. I do not know how common it is anymore.

Call me old fashioned, but if you CIO cannot be at work everyday when they are suppose to, then they should not be CIO especially when you adopt a policy of no work from home for your people but exempt yourself.

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This is the part I just don't get. This is the epitome of a job that screams out contractor. Limited scope limited duration job. Unless they were thinking the top person would eventually head up administration of the new system, but that seems like a stretch.

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The Workday transition was a 3-5 year project. After which they were to lead transitions into metadata collected various university systems. I can see where it would be cheaper for the university to make direct hires rather than contractors.

Also state law limits contracts to 1 fiscal year (I think they get away w multi year contracts by issuing new POs each year). It also requires a frickton of metrics, reports, and approvals. This being a multi year transition would make contract work untenable

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The 43-year-old computer system handles LSU’s tuition, payrolls, student services and other critical functions.

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That was fancy back when I was in college

They aquired that system when I was an undergrad. It suxed then.

They could probably replace that with a laptop.