Much has been made in this forum (and other places) of situations where news about Y2K remediation efforts gets "better" as it travels up the corporate hierarchy. The geeks in the trenches are sweating it, but the Y2K project mangers are "massaging" the info that the CEO gets and the CEO is putting a "happyface" on things in discussions with the outside world.

My question: is it possible that the reverse is true and, if so, how prevalent is it?

Let me give you an example. A friend of mine is a geek in a pretty big company. He knows that he and his fellow geeks have got the Y2K stuff under control and that there won't be major system problems come Jan 2000. But the CEO is getting "paranoid" about Y2K compliance (probably been in a lot of meetings with their lawyers [g]) and won't state anything about his company's Y2K situation until all the Ts have been crossed and all the Is dotted.

As my geek friend says: "'cuz the CEO is pretty clueless about how IT actually works in our company, he doesn't understand that we've got the heavy work done and that the wheels won't come off."

Anyone else experienced a similar situation?

Curious in Canada.

-- Johnny Canuck (nospam@eh.com), May 07, 1999

Answers

I certainly hope, in May, that there are, but I INTENSELY doubt it, form experience.

C

-- chuck, a Night Driver (rienzoo@en.com), May 07, 1999.

Good post Johnny. The situation is the same in our shop where the President is sweating over the non mission critical systems. He claims we can't state full compliance until all systems have been remediated. Yet the ones that aren't fixed (or even looked at) affect stuff like the parking control systems.

-- Captain COB (OL@bigindustry.com), May 07, 1999.

Of course.

There will be CEOs who are on top of the problem, and there will such who are clueless. The ones who are on top of the problem started early, the company will finish early, and will have time to test until they're blue in the face.

It seems these might be a minority.

Therein lies the problem.

-- yes (indeed@we're finished.now), May 07, 1999.

You are TRULY blessed. Most ceo - coo types are CLUELESS. Hows the pike fishing?

-- FLAME AWAY (BLehman202@aol.com), May 07, 1999.