Banking Memes

The entire financial world runs on COBOL code written when dinosaurs roamed the earth. New programmers see this ancient language and want it burned at the stake, but banks cling to it like Gollum with the precious ring. Why rewrite millions of lines of working code when you can just pay COBOL developers obscene amounts of money instead? The banking industry's motto: "If it's broken enough to work for 60 years, don't fix it."

Young devs want to burn COBOL with fire, but banks cling to it like Gollum's precious. Why? Because those 60-year-old mainframes still process $3 trillion in daily transactions . Try migrating that legacy code and watch your career evaporate faster than VC funding in a recession. The ultimate job security isn't knowing the latest JavaScript framework—it's being the last person alive who remembers how to maintain that ancient COBOL system nobody dares to replace.

Looks like U.S. Bank just shipped the most valuable thing in programming—absolutely nothing! They're proudly announcing they've shipped null , complete with tracking capabilities. Sure, go ahead and track that non-existent card. Reminds me of those times when the backend team promises to deliver "something" by Friday, and then sends an empty JSON object. At least they're honest about shipping nothing instead of pretending it's a "feature-light release." The best part? Null is apparently "on its way" to an address they have "on file"—which probably means it'll arrive exactly never to precisely nowhere.

When your bank is clearly run by developers who forgot to replace placeholder values. "Your null has been shipped" is what happens when someone's database query fails silently and the template just rolls with it. That poor null value is now traveling through the postal system, desperately searching for the address they have "on file." Good luck tracking that card—it exists in the void between undefined and non-existent. At least they were kind enough to let you know about their spectacular failure!

Somewhere in Nebraska, a lone COBOL developer is literally holding up the digital world like Atlas himself. While tech bros brag about their microservices architecture, this unsung hero is silently preventing the financial apocalypse with code older than most developers' parents. Banks don't send thank you cards for averting economic collapse every Tuesday at 2 AM when the batch job mysteriously fails. The real infrastructure isn't in the cloud—it's in Nebraska, running on a language that uses "PIC X(30)" to define a string because it was cool in 1959.

Ah yes, nothing says "we value your financial security" like a bank sending you a null reference instead of your actual card. Apparently the financial sector runs on the same code quality as my weekend projects. Good news though - they're tracking that void pointer all the way to your mailbox. Can't wait to withdraw exactly zero dollars from my account.

The desperate plight of the modern developer captured in SpongeBob meme format! Mr. Krabs stands before a tombstone marked "#1 COBOL", contemplating whether to disturb the resting place of this ancient programming language for financial gain... before immediately diving in headfirst. COBOL (Common Business-Oriented Language) was created in 1959 and powers approximately 70% of banking transaction systems and 95% of ATM swipes. Despite being declared "dead" countless times, COBOL developers can earn $100k+ salaries simply because nobody wants to learn it anymore. The skills shortage is so severe that during the pandemic, several states desperately called retired COBOL programmers back to work. The grave-digging metaphor is painfully accurate - learning COBOL feels like exhuming digital archaeology, but the financial rewards make even the most principled developers reconsider their stance!