Question sent out to my employer (and to several Others).

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

The first answer that I received to the following question was absolutely astounding, and from a state official. No mention even of preparing for (anything). very scary.

Hi,

It looks like Yale has its act together and even with problems just outside its doors possibly going on, the disruptions should be at a minimum. Being a team player in all aspects of my life, I am running into a problem that hopefully you can help me put into perspective, based on Yale's committments towards excellence and its vested interest in keeping things in the "work as usual" stage as we move past the Y2K Jan. 1Benchmark.

Upon a complete evaluation of all of the vendors that I work with in my daily life to secure the well being of my family (ie, lifestyle), NOT ONE will give me a written assurance that their corrections for the Y2K problem have been done to the level that indicate that their service will confidently remain uninterrupted at and beyond the Jan 1 2000 date change. This leads me to the conclusion that there might be a distinct possibility that my family's well-being might disrupted in a number of possible ways. And there is no way to know what the severity level of this potential disruption might be ahead of time. Not knowing the severity level, this means I will need to be prudent in my activity and do things to protect my family. The only advice I have seen has been from the Red Cross, and that was to prepare for a 3 day time period of disruption. Well, I have always been ready for that. The question is, What if it several weeks. You almost have to take a middle ground of somewhere between an almost nothing event to catastrophic... Tough prudent decisions need to be made here, cause I love my wife and kids and need to be accountable to them. So taking the middle ground.....wow, that means I have to do a lot of preparing. Things need to be acquired (the food, more warm clothing (winter time), Candles, etc. Now, why would I do this if nothing happens. Well, that's just It, I don't know if problems will occurr. That would be the reason for preparing. Now, as I see it, since the main stream media has not done some REAL investigating of the problem, at least at the basic level of what I even did, no one else in this whole world (at least my co-workers, and close friends) has seen this problem at the level I have, and don't even have the information to even decide if they want to prepare or not. After trying (and I did try, please believe me) to convey my heartfelt feelings on how I have approached this problem....my question to you is, can I expect a reasonable level of support from Yale in either(SP!) in preparing for this potential event (ie, being proactive in making this as much of a non event as possible, even if it does happen), and or anticipating some sort of contingency plan going into effect that will be equivalent of the above mentioned "reasonable level of support from Yale", something that will help mitigate the effects of any disruptions that may occurr. To be perfectly honest, as much as I've been a team player in terms of my working and business life up to this point, my family's immediate welfare will always come first, and if I have to spend time and resouces to take care of my family, it is much easier to come to work knowing that the family is taken care of, and that my employer has been active in being concerned about this issue. I don't want to be among the throngs going out at the last minute preparing for eventualities. How can you best advise me?

Sincerely Yours,

Tom

First answer:

From: steve.casey@po.state.ct.us X-Lotus-FromDomain: CT To: Thomas Saul Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1999 17:24:03 -0400 Subject: Re: Y2K, the personal side of the equation Content-Disposition: inline

I think it might be impossible to get anybody to guarentee completely uninterupted service today or any day. However, the reports on Y2K that I have seen are positive. Have you seen the DPUC audit of the major utilities? Check http://www.dpuc.state.ct.us/draftdec.nsf/6fe094d5f95a0bad85256448006902a0/db4d2b97fe2f1e378525678b005c12f8?OpenDocument

I encourage you to read it. The stress of this summer's power demand seems to be much greater than ISO-NE's situation on and after New Year's.

You might also be interested in today's Michele Jacklin's Column http://www.courant.com/voices/jacklin/

Computers and other machines break everyday. After New Year's there might even be a higher incidence. From everything that I've seen, read and been told, governments, businesses and institutions are going to be on alert. They will probably be in a better position to correct problems due to testing and re-testing, extra manpower and a concentration of attention by all levels of organizations.

-- thomas saul (thomas.saul@yale.edu), August 11, 1999

Answers

Hello Thomas from a fellow Conecticoid...

You may find an earlier thread about the White House sponsored Community Conversation held in Hartford last June illuminating:

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

I highly recommend downloading the DPUC audit described above. Throw away the executive summary and read the rest. I'd be curious to hear your impressions.

I'm familiar with your employer, and share your concerns. Buddy up with the Physical Plant middle managers and see what they think.

Regards-

-- Lewis (aslanshow@yahoo.com), August 11, 1999.


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