Respect the Old Ways

Defines,
Definea=Lseterm = 10Yrs;,
Defineg=Basicrnt = 440.76;,
Define0=Rnt1 ;Rnt_Gr_Debt;,
Define1=Rnt1 Resid1 Famort Asset01 ;Eq_Csh_Pf;,
Define2=Rnt1 ;Uneven_Rnt_Adv;,
Define4=Rnt1 ;Pv_Rnts_Flws;,
Define5=Except Loan;Ref_Loans;,
Define6=Rnt1 Resid1 Famort Asset01 State Federal ;Csh_Yld_Flws;,
Defineai=Cod = ((12*100)*(((1+(((Treas1+(((Treas2-Treas1)/(Term2
-Term1))*(Avg_Life-Term1)))+Debt_Spd)/200)) ^ (2/12))-1)) ; &
Cod Based On Avg Life And Converted From S/A To Monthly &
Frequency,

Above is part of a data-file from financial software that I regularly use. The software originally was written for mainframes in the 1980’s, then ported to MS-DOS. The developer issued a Windows version, but it is much slower, and frankly, I don’t completely trust its calculations.

So I use the DOS program. It requires a lot of patience and careful typing, because a single letter out of place will stop the program from running. Worse, it’s hard to find that letter because the primitive debugger isn’t very helpful in locating the problem. Last week it took me hours to figure out that “car3” should have been “cars3” in a lengthy file related to an investment in railcars.

So why don’t we buy a more up-to-date program? Two reasons: the most important is that the accounting for many of our investments uses the old software, and in these days of Sarbanes-Oxley, when any mistake will cause a team of auditors to land on a poor accountant like a ton of bricks, it’s best to leave well enough alone when the system works, however inefficiently. (In my weaker moments I dream that SOX, with its endless flowcharting, systems testing, and error remediation, is applied to federal and state governments; they would fail control standards within 30 seconds.)

The second reason we don’t switch is skepticism: the benefits of a new system are always exaggerated, while the costs of adoption are underestimated, and some are completely overlooked. I’ve never seen a new system do everything we needed it to do---and I’m not talking about bells and whistles but features essential to running our business. Patching and fixing the old is better than buying new.

Don't Eat Your Spinach
It’s not clear that Earthbound Farms can patch the fix that it’s in with the source of the E.coli outbreak still unknown on Monday morning. After the media and government swarm will come the lawyers, and the company will require a concentrated effort to work through this debacle. Even if it should survive, Earthbound Farms’ sales will suffer a huge initial dropoff in its business—no one absolutely has to eat their produce—and some customers may never return. Odwalla’s e.coli scare of 10 years ago nearly wrecked the company.

On Saturday I took the container of mixed greens (contains spinach) back to the market. The lady in front of me didn’t have a receipt and only said that she threw out a package of spinach, but they gave her a refund, no questions asked. We had opened our container and had eaten about a quarter of the contents, but they also gave me a full refund.

This is a reminder that canning and pasteurization were remarkable innovations in the prevention of disease. Another reason to respect the old ways of doing things.
© 2006 Stephen Yuen