Well over a decade ago, James Kirk started his career at as a lowly Programmer at a large company. In a short six months, through lots of hard work and dedication, his title and pay was upgraded to Programmer Analyst. At that point, he was happy with his career. Then came the hiring freeze. And the wage freeze. And the extension to the wage freeze. As the moths turned into quarters and the quarters into years, James saw less and less of an opportunity for any sort of advancement.

Of course, being that this is all ancient history, James had forgotten all about it. Recently however, a friend of his started working at James’ old workplace and stumbled upon some of his unhappiness… 

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*                                                                *
* VER  R003   31FEB92   LOWLY PROG ANAL JAMES KIRK      1143234  *
*    DIRECT PAYMENTS WITH -SPL CATEGORY DO NOT HAVE A CATEGORY   *
* NUMBER.  HANDLE THIS EXCEPTION GRACEFULLY.                     *
*                                                                *
******************************************************************
*                                                                *
* VER  R004   18MAY92   STILL PROG ANAL JAMES KIRK      1143276  *
* .. SUPPORT DISPLAYS OF -SPL CATEGORIES                         *
*                                                                *
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After awhile, with no raises or even title promotions on the horizon, drastic measures needed to be taken. And by drastic measures, I mean inflated forms of self worth… 

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*                                                                * 
* VER  R008  11NOV93    LORD JAMES KIRK                 1144345  * 
*          CONVERT PSEUDO CATEGORIES TO REAL CATEGORIES          * 
*          BEFORE SHIPPING OVER THE LINK                         * 
******************************************************************  
*                                                                * 
* VER  R009  18NOV93    KING JAMES KIRK                 1144341  * 
*          FILE DOWN WORKFILE BEFORE GOING OVER LINK             * 
*          FOR RECOVERY PURPOSES INCASE OF TIMEOUT               * 
*            30NOV93    FIX POSSIBLE ADDRESSING EXCPETION        * 
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The self-promotions continued for a while, until James settled on this one… 

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* VER  R012  04JAN94    EMPEROR JAMES KIRK              1144408  * 
*          EXPAND THE DATABASE RECORD FOR NEW ENTERPRISE PROJECT * 
*          ENSURE ONLY CATEGORIES ARE ONLY ALPHANUMERIC          * 
******************************************************************

Fortunately, shortly thereafter, a raise finally came. It was in the form of a job elsewhere. Rumor had it that it took three people to replace the emperor. As for the emperor’s code, that still lives on to this day…

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