From Cory Hamasaki at the comp.software.year-2000 forum:

My guess since Day 500 was that most firms were faking, status reports were just happy-talk, and the bad news would eventually drift out.

The fact that most firms missed "December 31, 1998 leaving a full year for testing," was the first clue. The March 31, 1999 deadline, and the recent problems with the Peoplesoft payroll package are clues two and three.

The quotes from the report on the Colorado payroll system tell the story:

"Mullen said he was misled by project leaders and staffers who indicated the project was progressing."

and

" 'All the Y2K briefings we received was that everything was on track,' said former Councilman Randy Purvis..."

Of course this is what's going on across the country. Fortune 5,000, 50,000 IBM style mainframes, millions of mini's and midi's, tens of millions of PeeCees.

Interestingly, the payroll package referred to in the story seems to be a PeeCee application. Legacy systems people know that rehosts of mainframe systems to PeeCees fail on a regular basis. This is in conflict with the popular belief that the problem is only on aging mainframes.

The greater Y2K story is unfolding pretty much the way you've been predicting. But denial and the coverups continue. Here's the query... HEY POLLY'S, EXPLAIN THE COLORADO PAYROLL MESS!

1, 2, 5 million dollars? Fake status reports? Ain't done, are we having fun yet?

-- wanna know but probably won't (wannaknow@therealtruth.me), May 04, 1999

Answers

Could you please provide a link or otherwise direct to sourceo on this story? Thank you.

-- wondering (wondering@paranoid.com), May 04, 1999.

I've also heard that other corporations were having trouble integrating peoplesoft products. When a consultant lies to his customer that's bad, no doubt about it. That's the first rule of consulting - don't lie. Lying is one sure way to get fired. But for you to extrapolate this to all other Y2K remediation efforts shows your ignorance.

So what do you need explained? That the city MAY (a possibility) not be able to pay vendors and employees? That they hired another consultant to integrate the payroll system (which I assumes ties to accounting system for vendor payments)? That this new consultant has been "on board" for a few months now? That they have until the end of the year to get it done? That they messed up and didn't pay close enough attention to the remediation effort? Sorry, but shit happens all the time, fact of life. People fix it. That's the point, we live in an imperfect world and somehow we don't notice these imperfections because they are getting fixed.

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), May 04, 1999.

Here is a link to the thread yesterday:

Link

The link to the article must have expired.

The determination of who lied to whom I am sure will be decided in court.

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), May 04, 1999.

Here's a lin k to the article...

Scott Johnson
Editor,
y2ktoday

-- Scott Johnson (scojo@yahoo.com), May 04, 1999.

hehehe,

Great response, Maria --

"Sorry, but shit happens all the time, fact of life."

Can't you see that this is exactly what non-pollys expect will happen in spades?

This is what Y2K is all about, that computers won't spit out the right answer. That the problem is that many, many of them will be spitting out the wrong answer at the same time. And your only response is "shit happens?" Oh my goodness.

got a brain?

-- em (em@ememem.emm), May 04, 1999.

You are so predictable. That's exactly what I thought when I put those words down. I could have written your response, em. But you forgot to read the rest.... and it gets fixed.

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), May 04, 1999.

"That's the point, we live in an imperfect world and somehow we don't notice these imperfections because they are getting fixed."

Maria, somehow I think that people have noticed these "imperfections" and that these "imperfections" are having a direct impact on the lives of people in Colorado.

While you constantly badger and flame those who look at every situation and read into it Y2k you simply cannot admit that there will be problems caused by Y2k glitches. You don't allow for any failure and the subsequent inability to fix on failure as a possibility in an industry where failure is very common. Are you fearful of failure? If there were none then nothing would be learned or advanced, right?

The impact of the costs of y2k fixes, the impact of y2k glitches, and the impact of human reaction, the impact of a world which is not fixing problems or began late in doing so...it all leads me to believe that the world will suffer through at the least a negative economic impact of some kind.

You, on the other hand, simply dismiss this as possible because "they'll get fixed." Somehow, I don't think that will be the case with every problem and somehow I don't see that it is possible to avoid having people notice the "imperfections" that cause disruptions in systems that people need in order to seamlessly go about their everyday lives.

Those "imperfections" you say will be fixed will be different based upon location. Somehow, I think if your paycheck was held up for a few days/weeks/months you might feel a little impact on your life too. Especially if the problem can't be fixed quickly or spare parts and chips are in short supply.

We just wont know until we get there will we?

Mike ============================================

-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), May 04, 1999.

ERP systems are notoriously difficult to install, even under optimal conditions. But if you start late, hire a bad consulting firm, and are trying to do it in a government office staffed by lethargic public payroll 9-to-5ers, then you have a recipe for disaster.

However, if they let the new consultants ram it down their throats, without allowing customizations, and maybe forcing the sloths to actually work a few extra hours, then it will get done in time.

There are a number of stories out there of firms that have recently abandoned SAP, PeopleSoft or similar implementations, because they realized they weren't going to make it in time, and went back to remediating their legacy code. That is bad news for those specific firms. However, this does not extrapolate to MILLIONS of similar situations, as the pessimists are so eager to do. Most of these projects already have been successfully completed. Which is why the ERP firms have been taking a beating this year.

-- Polly (skippy@innermongolia.com), May 04, 1999.

Maria -- Ability of us hackers to fix s#$%2 (I'm so delicate, aren't I) is astonishing. I know from correspondence with Cory he would be the first to agree. The question is:

"how much @#@$%@# noise will Y2K introduce from, say, now through 2Q 2000 above and beyond the usual and can we cope with the added level without serious-to-catastophic (not forever, just for a while) breakdowns?"

It is a no-brainer that even good teams, groups, orgs can be overwhelmed. At a minimum, we can expect "extra" noise and severe stress on what, at least in my experience, is an industry that is always fairly close to the edge anyway. Or do you disagree?

Undoubtedly, "it" will get fixed, whether directly, through junking systems we can live without, through the collapse of companies and the survival/prospering of those who did their homework, etc. But that is not necessarily incompatible with months of near-chaos followed by several years of "how can we keep this from ever happening again?"

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), May 04, 1999.

Mike, I hit a nerve, there, huh? I've said many times before there will be problems and how that translates into failures is anyone's guess. Let's look at the payroll system.

I don't know much about it other than when I owned a small company, I did the books and payroll myself, by hand, no computers. Now, say COS payroll system doesn't make it. What other things can they do? Well, for starters do as much end of year stuff as they can in Dec. Hire additional folks to do Jan payroll by hand. What? How can they do it manually? Well, I'm assuming that for a small city, the number of employees is low. I'm also assuming that everyone (from the mayor on down) is interested in seeing this function work therefore they will be motivated in getting "workarounds" in place. Maybe they can move to a bi-weekly paycheck instead of weekly (I don't know how often they get paid). This lengthens the cycle and the time spent on this function. The real problem is the end of year stuff and summarizing that data. Again, a manual means (not a permanent solution) can go a long way to seeing that people get their needs satisfied.

Is that glass half empty or half full?

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), May 04, 1999.

"But if you start late, hire a bad consulting firm, and are trying to do it in a government office staffed by lethargic public payroll 9-to-5ers, then you have a recipe for disaster.

However, if they let the new consultants ram it down their throats, without allowing customizations, and maybe forcing the sloths to actually work a few extra hours, then it will get done in time." Polly, I totally agree with you. But this is the REAL world where deadlines are just a state of mind and those "lethargic public payroll 9-to-5ers" along with customizations, etc. are a fact of life. Why will they change their behavior now? What will FORCE them to do things differently when this little y2k thing is no big problem?

The world isn't changing that fast. People aren't changing that fast. In fact, the world and people are resisting that change. It's not that the work wont get done it's that there isn't enough time left in the REAL world to get the work done. Delays happen. Shit happens. People are NOT used to meeting ABSOLUTE deadlines.

(sorry about the caps, I'm not yelling it's just that I don't know how to do italics)

I work in an industry where I meet deadlines almost every day. My work as a consultant in advertising has given me some great insight into how people handle deadlines, how they deal with the stresses, how they resist and procrastinate until the very last minute when it becomes a drop-dead deadline or a "crash". At least half of the time the deadline is missed. It might be missed by a few hours or a few days but it is missed.

Now, I can say without reservation that my work is different than IT work but the people and the attitudes aren't. Deadlines will be missed because deadlines are missed everyday. Deadlines have been missed in the past and deadlines will be missed come the turn over.

My deadlines are typically written in stone as being absolute and yet if I can I build into my schedule a little pad of time that allows for some slippage. However, this is a case where that isn't a possibility and deadlines can't be missed. This is a case where there is a chance that if deadlines aren't reached things will break and cause problems for people and business and government. The fact is that with some y2k glitches there is no slack in the timeline to allow for slippage. And, the little not-so-important deadlines that slip now will impact the ability of those "lethargic public payroll 9-to-5ers" to meet that final deadline.

After all, why should things or people change because if this little y2k thing?

Mike =================================

-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), May 04, 1999.

Maria : ) naw... I like talking to you...

Actually, I agree with you that things can be done manually. In fact, my wife is a CPA in a firm where they are ready for y2k. I expect them to be overwhelmed with work and make lots of money from organizations that have such problems.

Yet, that means that the cost of accounting goes up for those organizations that must now change and move their systems to manual. That means higher overhead and less productivity. That means that human error now becomes more of a factor. Going manual means a time for adjustment.

It's the time in between that worries me. My nature has me think that the glass is half full but I understand that it is currently holding 50% of it's capacity. What happens if the class becomes overwhemed by the faucet and spills over. Or, better yet, what if my faucet breaks and I can't shut it off and the sink which can't hold all that water gushing into it eventually overflows. There is only so much capacity before things overflow. I only had so much time to fix the faucet before my little catastrophe happened.

I just don't think that the systems will adapt in a timely manner that will allow business as usual to be possible in all cases. Also, there is only so much capacity for people to do things manually. Luckily, my wife learned how to do books the old fashioned way...but how many kids out of school have learned the biz primarily on the computer?

Maria, it's the time in between when adjustments are being made that worries me. I agree with you and I think you are 100% that things can be done manually, just not in every case. You know how tough it is to run a business and what kinds of demands there are and sometimes things like high overhead just make it impossible for some businesses to continue.

As for hitting a nerve...nope, I was blessed with thick skin. I respect you and I really do welcome the opportunity to learn from you.

Mike ==========================================

-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), May 04, 1999.

BTW::: BD or Mike (Whichever) You have missed a small point. Maria has indeed indicated that she expects glitches and failures and lots in between for the rollover. Having said things of this sort, she ALSO expects that the error recovery rate will, to all outward appearances look just like it does today, in that now, things go down and we debug them and fix them. Sometimes taking days and or weeks.

However, the problem in this situation is that the failures, instead of being spread out and happening in some sort of bastardized Gaussian distribution, will happen on top of each other, and the best trouble hunters will already be busy on the immediately previous problem(s). This will stretch out the error correction rate. Besides, if the rate of correction of errors stays the same, the sheer number of errors being corrrected will make the outward appearances QUITE different from today.

Chuck

-- chuck, a Night Driver (rienzoo@en.com), May 04, 1999.

Chuck said:

"However, the problem in this situation is that the failures, instead of being spread out and happening in some sort of bastardized Gaussian distribution, will happen on top of each other, and the best trouble hunters will already be busy on the immediately previous problem(s)."

I and others have been saying this for at least a year now. What part of this statement do Maria and Hoff not understand? We seem to be beating a dead horse.

-- a (a@a.a), May 04, 1999.

Whoa, invoking my name here?

Actually, taking the Gartner Group's estimates, they will fall on a somewhat "Gaussian" distribution.

-- Hoffmeister (hoff_meister@my-dejanews.com), May 04, 1999.

uh, Hoff, would that be the same Gartner Group that is under contract to the Federal Government, and the same Federal Government that said last year they were hiring consultants to "contain panic at all costs"?

-- a (a@a.a), May 04, 1999.

Ahh yes, how could I forget the "Vast Conspiracy" to conceal the "Real Truth".

You know, sometimes it strikes me that if "They" were to spend half as much effort fixing the problem as they are apparently spending to mislead everyone, they wouldn't have to mislead them to begin with.

-- Hoffmeister (hoff_meister@my-dejanews.com), May 04, 1999.

So, has anyone checked c.s.y2k? Have the pollys over there answered Cory's "challenge?"

-- and... (just@curious.now), May 04, 1999.

Hoffmeister commented:

"Ahh yes, how could I forget the "Vast Conspiracy" to conceal the "Real Truth". "

Hoffmeister, these days it does not take a "Vast Conspiracy" just some DECEIT and LIES, that John Q Public will buy for awhile. Our Administration has had MUCH practice at this type of venue so there should be NO PROBLEMO!!

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), May 04, 1999.

Two points here -

1 - Some aren't going to make it and had better have good contingency plans. Every 'polly' I know of agrees to this. The question is not "can I point to a few isolated cases" but rather "will enough make it so the rest can be fixed in 6 months or less".

2 - It is not, as yet, d-day. What they accomplish over the next 8 months is at least as signifigant as this wrangle in the city council. You don't KNOW they won't be ready until they actually come down to the wire.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), May 04, 1999.

Anyone see "Dilbert" -- Y2K show last night? Is it "pointy-haired boss" or "horn-haired boss"?

Maria and other pollys: You ever do any programming other than maybe setting up a recipe file? Done it on a network? If so, and based on your experience you think Y2K will be "no problemo" then you've lead a charmed life. Reality awaits.

Fixing stuff that's broken relies on most other stuff necessary in the fixing process to work. What if a lot of that stuff is broken also?

-- vbProg (vbProg@MicrosoftAndIntelSuck.com), May 04, 1999.

Wow. A VB programmer? On a network, even?

Yes, I'll bow to your superior experience.

-- Hoffmeister (hoff_meister@my-dejanews.com), May 04, 1999.

Paul Davis commented:

"You don't KNOW they won't be ready until they actually come down to the wire. "

Hey Paul, you've got about 8 more months to use this one, maybe less!!

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), May 04, 1999.

We might add that the top military fella said that it was not 'down' systems that concerned him (because then you know what the problem is), it was the systems they could not tell were working correctly but appeared to be OK.

Propogation of errors of even a small percentage on a continuing basis will totally screw up an operation that handles alot of volume of transactions.

The system and data rot is occuring as we type. Like a tall tree that looks solid, you'll never know how bad it is until a wind snaps it in half. Then you'll see what is at the core.

BTW it seems that Maria has alot of time on her hands and would appreciate a call from anyone who has a system problem. Would fill in a bit of her free time.

-- David (C.D@I.N), May 04, 1999.

David, How do you know I have a lot of free time? And further, what I do with my free time is entirely my busniness not yours. Sure if the mayor wanted me to come in January and hand write paychecks, I'd be there.

Excuse me, but I thought this thread was about payroll systems. What are the upstream and downstream systems affected by this system? What I included was a possible contingency plan, if things didn't work out.

A, you're an idiot.

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), May 04, 1999.

Some people believe in the Computer god and some believe in the God that made us all.

..."and no one bought their stuff anymore..."

"Professing themselves to be wise they became fools."

-- wannabefree (gonnabit@big.one), May 04, 1999.

Chuck, thanks for pointing out something I must have missed. I made the mistake of thinking Maria was a "no big problem" person.

Maria, my apologies : )

What do you think about that time in between a system going down and going to a manual contingency? Is it possible for a large corporation to have a plan and resources in place just in case? How would it impact overhead? These are the kinds of questions that bother me about the move to a manual system for an entity which is aware and ready with contingencies.

What happens to those entities that will be taken by surprise and without a contingency? What happens if resources are already stretched tight? What happens if I become a pessimist : )

Hey...vbProg...how can I get on that "MicrosoftandIntelSuck.com"? That is too cool.

Also, as I have no understanding of what the heck a vbProg does, can someone explain it to me?

Mike ==========================================================

-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), May 04, 1999.

I suppose that if the only problem within an organization were to be payroll, it might be possible to get enough people to write the checks by hand. However, if there were to be multiple problems, across the continent, going manual is a pipe dream.

Our computer at work crashed a couple of weeks ago for 3 days , and our customer service department went manual. It was stressful, and took several days of overtime after it was fixed to catch back up. the department head had kept telling me that if Y2K hit us, his dept. would go manual. He doesn't make that flippant remark anymore.

I don't post here often, but read every post. It has become apparent that the polly's really don't have a clue. I really don't see the wisdom of bantering with these people, it really is hopeless.

This may be a little insight to the polly mentality. My wife and I were having our monthly pissing contest about Y2K, and I asked her, if God himself came to her, and told her that Y2K was a 100% certainty to be devastating, would she prepare? Yes, was her answer. What if it was 90% certain? Wellllll, I'm not sure that I would prepare, said she.

Head, brick wall.

Oh, and you polly's that think all doomers WANT things to be bad, are pretty sick shits, and you ought to be ashamed of yourselves.

OK, that's enough ranting. Thanks for your patience, now bring on the flamers.

-- Mike (Boxman9186@aol.com), May 04, 1999.

Sorry, I hit the submit button too quickly. I was in a hurry and didn't finish my post. I wanted to continue that this COS payroll problem is very small compared to others. Cory's challenge to the pollys is not very difficult. In addition to being small, it also does not rely on power (for a manual method) or telecomm. And it really doesn't even apply to the third leg of the triad. I asked the question about up and downstreams because I believe that payroll is a very isolated system. Paychecks can be put into the hands of employees at the end of pay periods. I wish my Y2K project were this (what I perceive to be) easy.

I could have doomers' logic to say, "just because X company is having problems (finished for good news) doesn't mean all companies are having problems (finished for good news)." Instead I admitted that peoplesoft has had their problems and even though I didn't spell it out, this could imply that other companies using peoplesoft will have similar problems.

VbProg, yes I have. No kidding, fixing problems on 1/1/00 depends on lots of other people doing their work. Lots of dependencies out there.

BigDog, I don't disagree. Y2K has been an extremely overwhelming endeavor. Companies have never really inventoried their entire enterprise. But as in all big projects, we eat the elephant one bite at a time. Interesting point though, why don't you start another thread, I'd join in.

Mike Taylor no appology needed.

Other Mike knock yourself out.

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), May 04, 1999.

Maria commented:

" I asked the question about up and downstreams because I believe that payroll is a very isolated system. Paychecks can be put into the hands of employees at the end of pay periods. I wish my Y2K project were this (what I perceive to be) easy. "

Gee Maria, I thought payroll was an integral part of a companies overall accounting system, at least it was a few years back. My how times have changed. I guess CFO's don't need an integrated accounting system anymore.

Your Pal, Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), May 04, 1999.

Ray -- good point, though it depends, of course, on size of enterprise. IBM ain't going to be paying its employees manually and even if it could (but it can't), it would wreak havoc on other accounting systems (which we're assuming are up? or down? or ??).

Smaller companies, maybe even up to 500 or so employees, probably could do it manually, though with extreme pain and degradation to other productivity as they approach the 500 person-level.

Jury is still out, BTW, on whether big guys or small fish can better cope with Y2K breakdowns taken as a potential whole. I haven't a clue and I hope I never find out.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), May 04, 1999.

You know, I never said they WOULD be ready, I said they MIGHT still get their act together. Eight months is eight months, and there are an awful lot of basic accounting packages that could be modified to approximately fit their needs in that time. Fine tuning could wait for later.

That said - just WHY is it so necessary to try to find some point to disagree with me on that? Are you stating as an absolute that there is ABSOLUTELY NO POSSIBLE WAY FOR ANY of the city employees to get paychecks OF ANY SORT next January? Would you care to put that in the form of a wager with a bonded stakeholder? And since you seem so blame certain, you should offer odds of at least 5 to 1 to be fair to a sucker like me.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), May 04, 1999.

Maria, Paul,

Oh, I'll take this one at face value. A consultant who didn't know what he was doing screwed up, and they're facing a sweat-it-out deadline now. Actually, I expected a few of these to crop up (just as I expect a handful of true whoppers next year).

The fact remains, though, that if the Jo Anne Effect was as big as Cory implies, we would be seeing literally hundreds (actually thousands, if he wants to bring Pee Cees into it, as he seems to be doing now) of these failures by now. Not "eventually," not "next month;" NOW.

Cory's original challenge to me had the figure of 50,000 mainframes worldwide. I allowed that he might find evidence of a round dozen true-blue, no-kiddin' failures due to the JAE. That would represent a whopping .024% of all mainframes.

Thus far, I believe he's found three or four, and now he wants to add PeeCees? Talk about shooting an argument squarely in the foot ...

-- Stephen M. Poole, CET (smpoole7@bellsouth.net), May 05, 1999.

-- Stephen M. Poole, CETcommented:

"Oh, I'll take this one at face value. A consultant who didn't know what he was doing screwed up, and they're facing a sweat-it-out deadline now. Actually, I expected a few of these to crop up (just as I expect a handful of true whoppers next year). "

Stephen, no court of law here I guess, let's just take the POLITICIAN at his word they never LIE!!! Are you associated with a POLITICIAN?

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), May 05, 1999.

Stephen, good point. True we should be seeing more good news and organizations getting done, but we also should be seeing some of the predictions about the JoAnn effect coming through. Funny how the doomers sweep that one under the rug. Actually, I think PCs are the least of the Y2K worries. (Just opinion, based on my years of experience working Y2K)

Ray, believe what ever you'd like about politicians but this politician in COS came forward and admitted they didn't practice sound management. And payroll is a part of accounting if you read my first post you would have seen that statement. I know, it's hard for you to stay focused and follow any kind of reasoning.

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), May 05, 1999.