We let that sink in for a few seconds. Then he told us that he had used that phone number for every data entry field that required a phone number on the test CICS system. (He was in the process of buying a house at the time and I guess that's the number that was very much on his mind.) When the CICS programmer shared that information, the programmer who earlier had installed the change to the communications code reacted.
"I forgot to switch back to production after testing my code at the datacenter!"
That's when we all realized why the kiosk in our office was constantly dialing: When the kiosk began its communications sequence after the systems programmer ran his test, all the sales information went to the test environment, and more importantly, it was instructed to dial the CICS programmer's realtor's office for the next exchange -- which was set at 4:00 that afternoon. We also realized this: The kiosks were programmed to retry every minute after a failed communications attempt. So every minute it would dial a well-known real-estate office, listen for a modem tone, and when none occurred it would hang up. Then it dawned on us that the 40 other terminals around the area (some up to 2 hours away by car) were doing the same thing. The only way to correct it was to reset the phone number on the kiosks themselves, because once the kiosks had the phone number changed by the process in place, they were effectively cut off. They no longer knew the datacenter numbers, they only knew a bogus number (the real estate office) which wasn't giving them any useful information back.
We called the realtor's office to let them know what was going on, then we resolved the problem by dividing up the area among the project members, driving out, and resetting each machine. The realtor kept staff at work until late that night, answering the calls. The next day we used the kiosk on our floor to send flowers and a note of apology to the realtor's office. I guess they decided they really wanted the sale on the CICS programmer's home, because the realtor didn't pursue any action.
Eventually the project died and the project team was first in line for the fire sale of all the unsold merchandise we had in a local warehouse. I still have the set of screwdrivers and some wood tools from that sale.
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