This company's pension distribution system is a heavily customized version of a well-known package. And it has worked fine for years, says a programmer pilot fish responsible for maintaining it.

But that can't last. And in fact, push comes to shove when the chief operating officer retires, he being the first employee to get over $1 million in his distribution.

The problem: The file used to send the transaction to the bank can only handle $999,999.99. “All of the reports were correct,” says fish, “but the one file that needed to be correct was not.

“So instead of having $1.8 million deposited in his account, only $800,000 was.

“I had to manually correct the file and resend it to the bank.

“We never did change the code to fix the issue. The company decided to have a third-party vendor take over that system.”

Sharky would never complain that “only” $800k was deposited in his account. But the deposit I’m really interested in is your true tale of IT life. Send it to me at sharky@computerworld.com. You can also subscribe to the Daily Shark Newsletter and read some great old tales in the Sharkives.