There is lots of focus on this utility, or that corporation, or such and such a government agency. Many do try looking at the overall picture by industry, and know that the interconnections between each segment of our society are also vitally important. However, what is generally not taken into consideration is the many subdivisions of the Y2K issue even within a corporation or agency. . . . Not all IT or Y2K project teams are created equal, nor is the expertise and experience of the everyday human resources available, nor is the competence of the management tiers.

The fact of the matter is that one corporation may have its main frames done but nothing else. Another may have its embedded systems taken care of but the main frame is a mess. One plant may be in fine shape, another one not, but both owned by the same organization. Or one office in an agency may have a guy who has taken great care in his remediation and another office in the same business may not have even started. Or one company may have finished the job but be terrified it's overseas dependencies will bring it down anyway. . .: Organizations may announce high compliancy, but they are dependent on information sent up the chain of command. There had better be systematic institutional procedures to verify these reports. There rarely are.

This is from Bonnie Camp.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

. . . There is lots of focus on this utility, or that corporation, or such and such a government agency. Many do try looking at the overall picture by industry, and know that the interconnections between each segment of our society are also vitally important. However, what is generally not taken into consideration is the many subdivisions of the Y2K issue even within a corporation or agency. . . . Not all IT or Y2K project teams are created equal, nor is the expertise and experience of the everyday human resources available, nor is the competence of the management tiers.

The fact of the matter is that one corporation may have its main frames done but nothing else. Another may have its embedded systems taken care of but the main frame is a mess. One plant may be in fine shape, another one not, but both owned by the same organization. Or one office in an agency may have a guy who has taken great care in his remediation and another office in the same business may not have even started. Or one company may have finished the job but be terrified it's overseas dependencies will bring it down anyway. . .

This is the insidious nature of the problem and why NO ONE is going to KNOW anything absolutely until after the fact. What we can know is that human nature remains the same and the variables in that one area alone can put to shame any organized Y2K project.

While I will continue to respect and maintain the anonymity of those who have e-mailed me various reports, I can tell you that one of the categories a good portion of these reports fall into is what I term the "We're in over our head, here." syndrome. . . .

I hope this helps people recognize that even good-intentioned management may not know what they think they know. In my experience management tends to rather blindly believe that employees will accomplish whatever tasks they are assigned to do. . . .

I also am aware that it's a rare situation when any employee has a solid enough ego to announce that the task is beyond their capabilities, the complexities over their head, or there's not enough hours in the day to do their job and Y2K work, too. They may state these things to friends, or their wives, but not to their bosses. . . .

-- Bonnie Camp (B.C.@att.net), April 26, 1999

Answers

Bonnie, here's an interesting quote re your next to last paragraph above:

"'You know the four miracles of socialism?' joked Frantisek Vencovsky, a senior Czechoslovak planning adviser, with unusual frankness:

'Everyone has a job but nobody works.

Nobody works but all plans are fulfilled.

Plans are fulfilled by nothing is available.

Nothing is available but everything is perfect.'"

I did a 5-year stint in a giant HMO's computer R&D department in the '70s -- got to do some hardware design and structured assembly language programming, and struggled with no-nothing management re building medical informations systems. My work was implementing (very early) PCWeenie strategies while surveying the wreckage of a $1M failed effort based on S/360 and 370 iron. Learned a lot -- finally quit in disgust and became a family doc again.

I appreciate your levelheaded approach to the bilateral flaming phenomenon (GI's vs DGI's.)

-- William J. Schenker, MD (wjs@linkfast.net), April 26, 1999.

I thought I was prepared, but something about reading Bonnie's recent posts makes me want to get that Coleman propane stove and a couple extra tanks that I've been putting off buying. Not to mention a few more canned items.

-- Puddintame (achillesg@hotmail.com), April 26, 1999.

The reason employees lie to management is that management is epitomized by the pointy-haired boss in Dilbert. Clueless and/or not wanting to hear bad news -- unwilling to hear bad news -- and a propensity to "shoot the messenger" (anyone delivering bad news).

Mangement gets what it pays for.

-- A (A@AisA.com), April 26, 1999.

Puddintame, you have that nice K-Mart in Raleigh, staffed by (mostly) courteous and helpful employees. K-M has a nice selection of propane (God's gas) and propane accessories. Got two more small tanks yesterday. Yeah, I know it's not economical but the biggies are hard to heft around and I'm an

-- Arthritic Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), April 26, 1999.

This is one aspect of the Peter Principal that everyone rises to their own level of incompetence. They can't rise any higher and management is reluctant to demote them to a job they can do. Or they may have risen in the company or government because of one special ability, (management, finance, sales etc. yet they know nothing about interconnected systems, the tencency of employees to goof off or suck up, the lying to management (it is fixed) the shoot the messenger concept where the employee got burned by telling the truth during an earlier problem etc. etc. The problems are not recognized, each level makes the report sound a little better, and when the day of reconing gets here, watch out. The people in charge will have retired by then. Our leader is not setting a good example for the troops by lying under oath and Congress is too worthless to do anything about it. We need less spin. I couldn't believe it. Clintons poll ratings are actually lower now about the war than they were a month ago. How many casualities have been hidden? It is impossible to have that many bombing missions without accidents or planes shot down. They finally announced that one helicopter had a "training accident". It was practicing getting out of the way of the shells being shot at it?

-- Tom (amazed@notstupid.gom), April 26, 1999.

I don't know who "B.C.@att.net" is, but even if they are somehow also named "Bonnie Camp" I would appreciate it if they would differentiate between the one who wrote the original post as an answer on the EUY2K forum (me)and the one who posted it here. (not me)

I just discovered that Gary North picked up my post and the above snips are from his site. Some of the comments in the above are also Mr. North's and not mine, as is the title of this thread. What is missing above is the URL MR. North always provides so a reader may access the full post:

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000l3N

I'm all for anyone posting whatever article they may feel is of interest, but *please* use your own name to do so, or differentiate it if it is the same as the author's name, and reference where it came from.

I'm traveling again this week, having a difficult time right now using my husband's laptop (set up completely differently from my own computer)and the last thing I need is for someone else to be helpfully? or otherwise posting things to this forum using my name with a different e-mail address. Again, while I wrote the post on the EUY2K Forum, I am not the "Bonnie Camp" who submitted it here!

-- Bonnie Camp (bonniec@mail.odyssey.net), April 27, 1999.