Just thought you folks might like to know this. I work for the Army Corps of Engineers, Memphis District. We have been trying to find all the Y2K problems in our District for some time now. (Phew, what a job!) Anyway, I was talking about the problem to a staff officer thursday, and he gave me a curious piece of information. If you retire from a Federal position, and then return to work on some Govt. project after retirement, you don't draw your pension check until you quit working again. There is now an exception to this formerly iron-clad rule. If you return to work on any Y2K project, you can draw your pension AND a Federal paycheck. This is the only blanket exception to this rule that has ever been made, as far as I know. Someone up there is taking Y2K MUCH more seriously than the official position seems to be. Comments?

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), September 19, 1998

Answers

There is another interesting side note to this. If you come back from retirement, the govt was going to force you to do some gymnastics with the tax liabilty as well, and so many programmers decided against coming back to work. No matter how hard govt tries, it just can't get it right. :)

-- Pastor Chris (pastorchris@lifetel.com), September 19, 1998.

Better yet, if you were given a "bonus" of $25K to retire early from your government job, and they need you back for y2k. You must first pay them back the $25K, then you can come back to work. There is a recent post at Gary North's site from a former govt. programer who explains this in detail. Another interesting thing is the govt. is sending out mass mailings to former programers inviting them back to work to solve y2k problems.

-- Bill (bill@microsoft.com), September 19, 1998.