Will not mention the name, period. Since the first of the year we have lost the entire payroll dept. Had to sub it out. One month ago we lost the top IT guy. Last week we lost the guru programmer.(A good friend from around the Burgh.) This week the store by store sales crashed. They have a programmer working on it. We just got brandy new IBM Infinite's, the software will not survive the rollover, period. All is well . Don't worry be happy. Wished I knew where the dude was that sang that song! I'd choke him. :)

Anbody else want to fess up?

-- FLAME AWAY (BLehman202@aol.com), August 26, 1999

Answers

Department I work for (no names please) will have their first realtime test when the rolloever takes place. Nothing even remotely close has been done to ensure compliance, but we are compliant, ooops, ready. So 'ready' that we are doing our Jan/Feb/March 2000 work this November. Happy days are here again,

Owl

-- owl (new@new.com), August 26, 1999.

There are successes, though. At my place we're wrapping up trivia, one-off desktop apps for noncritical junk that we can do with pencil, needs be. All the big stuff is done, tested, happy.

I can't give the name, either. They're lenient regarding my Y2k rabble rousing, and in return I keep a low profile. But it's been an amazing couple years. Never saw a company grab a problem this big and do so well, and this is not a bleeding edge group, just a mixed bag of coders.

Neither of these companies is the whole picture. The question is not "will [Flame's employer] get the payroll fixed?", but "will [Flame's employer] survive?" and "will [bw's employer] survive?". We won't know for a while.

The question is "how many companies are how ready, and is that enough?". Sorry, got no answer for that.

Got beans?

-- bw (home@puget.sound), August 26, 1999.

I work for a semiconductor company. We have testers for testing our ic's. One series of testers used on our older line of ic's is called the series 80(I'm not sure who makes the tester, I believe it's Teradyne since they make most of our other model testers). The fact is all the test's done using that model are date stamped. Our illustrious IS department discovered that on 1-1-00 the testers WILL CEASE TO FUNCTION--COMPLETELY. It's not as bad as it sounds though, we are just going to put the date at 19(72). That fix will work, however, the operators will have to fill in the proper info by hand.

BTW, there is no Mfr. fix either.

My point is. I had doubt's before when I heard people say that whole systems would totally STOP on 1-1-00, now I KNOW better. I still believe the "embedded" shit's gonna be the bigger culprit. We'll see.

-- CygnusXI (noburnt@toast.net), August 26, 1999.

We were late getting print-outs from another department, & the girl on the phone said "It's a y2k problem, we can expect more & more of that."

When I passed this along to my department, the pollies I work with just snickered. They remarked that ALL computer problems will be labeled "y2k-related" until the end of the year. Since they don't believe in y2k anyway, they find this pretty amusing, sort of like blaming your pc problems on evil spirits. I've given up trying to convince anyone. Que sera, etc.

-- I (cast@thee.out), August 26, 1999.

The company i work for is still in a state of denial. Basically were screwed......! Were manufacturing that plans to fix on failure. The Plant manager is a happy " don't give me bad news" kind a guy. Just keep copies of all correspondence. "CYA situation". A "Maria" rags on Cory about his description of incompetent " ass kissers ". Well Maria there imcompetent here as well.

-- kevin (kevin@workas.well), August 26, 1999.

I left a very high paying posision with a large electric utility, I saw firsthand how the y2k problem was being handled, the electric bills will be sent out right on time, that was the first thing to get compliant. My job now is to get my home y2k compliant for my family.

-- Carol (glear@usa.net), August 26, 1999.

"--Anbody else want to fess up? "

YES - But I can't.

If I describe what I do or even hint at who I work for, you would know and so would my employer. Remember the three legs of the iron triangle?

My part of it to me seems small but, sometimes a lot of small stuff arranged correctly can make a large difference.

As it stands my job will vaporize in early to mid January 2000. Unless a silver bullet fix is available very soon after January 1.

More pressing problems in other areas of the infra-structure (much more important than mine) are taking all available manpower in remediation.

Huge sums of money are at stake. But all the brass wants is a vague reference to "We are ready".

Incredible pressure has been excerted on them from the VERY top, to say "We are ready."

Everyone involved knows it is not true but, have been told not to speak to anyone about it. And they probably wont.

-- no talking please (breadlines@soupkitchen.gov), August 26, 1999.

I used to work for a company that sold and serviced personal computers. One day, one of our servers went down, and I (who was new at this at the time) and another guy couldn't get it working. It was getting rather frustrating, as someone needed to get reports out.

We beeped our head techie guru dude, and he got there a short time later. We explained what the problem was, and he powered down the server.

Next, he layed his hands on the machine and concentrated for a moment. Then he turned the machine back on, and with a wild look in his eye, he announced, "It will work. It WILL work!"

Sure enough, the machine booted right up, and worked with no problem! True story!!

I learned how to do that, though I've only used on VERY rare occasions. I imagine that there will be lots of people attempting this after the rollover, but unless they've been initiated into the SECRET (there's even a handshake), I suspect that there will be much disappointment. Hey, if it works 2% of the time, that's not bad!

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), August 26, 1999.

Pssst. Pshannon. I'll let you in on a little secret.

The "guru dude" came in and determined that the system needed to be rebooted. The "laying on of hands" was for his ammusment. (Talk about "hands on experience").

It's kind of like when we used to tell the operators to carry the 9-track tapes on a horizontal plane because if they turned them on edge the data would all slide to one side. At least until it was safe in the magnetic stasis feild generated by the tape cart. (See! It sez right here "magnetic media". Do not doubt me again!)

But you knew that, didn't you.

Keep your...

-- eyes_open (best@wishes.net), August 26, 1999.

I am a contractor currently working for state government. There are many systems that are going to be totally coming up very soon. When I start asking hard questions about total y2k remediation it is like speaking to cowed dogs. Virtually all these state employees have been conditioned to wear the "happy face". Most know it is going to be a real mess but have been told "not to make a big deal over it" and project to the public that "all is well" I know for a fact that four different agencies that I have consulted with are going down.. And what I mean by going down is for at least a week probably more. Anyone in IT know that after a program/system hits a certain amount of errors it is just better to start over rather then try and patch it together.. Don't be fooled by the spin from the government/corp/media complex.. It is coming and many things are going to break down.. at least in this particular state government.. good luck to you all

I apologize for any spelling or gramatical errors.. back to work

-- Gary (anom@nowhere.gov), August 26, 1999.

I work for a large company that is VERY Y2K aware and is currently assessing contingency plan needs. They're definitely doing the right things. They have generators, but I don't know how long the fuel supply would last if things get really bad.

Since the discussion has already wandered I will add:

Four engineers get in a car to drive to an engineering conference: mechanical engineer, chemical engineer, electrical engineer, and a software engineer.

On the way there, the car just stops running. The ME says, "I think I heard the pistons seize up. We'll have to disassemble the engine to free up the pistons." The CE responds, "No, I think the air-fuel mix was incorrect, we just need to adjust the carburetor. The EE says, "I think the electrical system shorted out. We probably need a new alternator."

They all turn to the software engineer and say, "Well?"

He stares back at them blankly and says, "Can't we all just get out of the car and get back in again?"

-- nothere nothere (notherethere@hotmail.com), August 26, 1999.

Work for Cable Tv, almost all computers here are fixed with "patches" and still waiting on alarm systems fix in November, and all new Headend equipment which was supposed to be here already. Headend stuff was very date and time sensitive. Some converters were outdated and had to be replaced in a massive "swap out" effort, which was done. New compliant fax machines in place. Overheard our y2k head on a teleconference with all other east coast systems. We are ahead of all of them, some a floundering badly. We do have many generators for backup, as do most cable systems.

-- kritter (kritter@adelphia.net), August 26, 1999.

Finished up with a Y2K nuke project, nothing found that would have shut the plant down, remediated a number of minor embedded system problems (date stamping errors), upgraded a lot of software (minor date errors), and fixed a couple of more serious bugs (not in the plant). The mainframe stuff has been fixed as well. Y2K ready, and the grid will be too. Regards,

-- FactFinder (FactFinder@bzn.com), August 26, 1999.

Don't worry be happy guy committed suicide many moons ago. No kidding.

-- Moore Dinty moore (not@thistime.com), August 26, 1999.

Don't worry be happy guy committed suicide many moons ago. No kidding.

Gee, somebody better tell him that. He was just in San Diego last week, you dumbass.

See for yourself.

-- (donworry@be.happy.idiot), August 26, 1999.

Nothere, thanx for a good joke! :-) And all of you, thanks for some real-life examples.

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), August 26, 1999.

FactFinder, the grid is going to be fine??? You'd better go back and check your facts again buddy.

-- Fed Up (fedup@hadit.com), August 26, 1999.

Work for a major television network. Huge campus, lots of buildings and LOTS of king size satellite dishes (we call it the dish farm). Major construction this summer...saw them installing huge underground diesel tanks and nearby generators. Also, this week had to work late several nights and discovered as I walked across the campus at about 1 AM next to the dish farm that they were drilling wells. Big trucks with the scafolding like a giant drill press with the words "Environmental Drilling" on the side. I counted five wells drilled over three nights by two trucks. Could be more I dont know, I wasn't there all week. They capped them and left. I asked the security guard at the gate but he didn't know anything (not surprising, this is the same security force that that we make jokes about. We have ID/swipe cards that allow an employee to get into general and restricted areas. Each card has the individuals full color picture on it. One day I forgot my card (I am white) but showed my friend's drivers' license (he is black) and they still let me right in...duh.). Sorry for the rambleing..tired...must sleep pppprtjhhahhhh fj snore.....

--------

-- clever (cleverlycr@fted.com), August 27, 1999.

The "environmental drilling" could be for an EIR report for the equipment being installed. Sometimes counties and states have to have an EIR before installation of any equipment or building installation near or on the drilling site.

-- best guess (bestguess@bestguesss.cvom), August 27, 1999.

I work for large federal agency on a realtime distributed management information system. NT 4.00 Backroom Oracle Client Server data crunchers with GUI front ends. Provide realtime information on thousands of employees, labor hours, productivty etc. We concluded IV&V months ago, and had to reconcile any changes from the beta tests back thru IV&V. We are almost done with deployment for fiscal year rollover with anticipated conclusion next week. Base upon all information to date we will be ok for fiscal, then calandar rollover. Best of luck to the rest of you.

-- Slammer (Slammer@Slamma.Ramma), August 27, 1999.

until the end of july, i worked at a car dealership. they recently (august, i found out about it when i went to get my check) did some remediation work. ALL of their past payroll information was lost. they were having to re-input everything. don't know if anything else happened there. i now temp. my first week, the company i was at uses Apples. the second company i was at was having daily computer problems caused by their remediation. the company i am at now as had at least 1, sometimes 2, computers crash repeatedly EVERY DAY. the one that goes down most often usually goes down about 4 times/day. you can tell when it happens by the VP screaming cusswords about it.

-- sarah (qubr@aol.com), August 27, 1999.

I work for an electronics manufacturing company with a dozen facilities in North America. I am in a facilty away from HQ. All of our mainframe remediation (critical and noncritical) is completed, and currently going through testing. However, we have not even began testing or remediation of our PC's. We were sent a test program from HQ early this year, and found that 35 out of 52 units were at risk. We were told that someone would be down from HQ to do the remediation. I have followed up on this, and am now being told that the head of our network department has been replaced, and that they have found that the program we used to test the PC's was a cheap shareware program, and that they would all have to be retested. They said they will get around to doing the testing next month. The only reply I got to my questioning if that would leave us enough time to fix them all before yearend, was that "it would have to be". Yippee.

-- Bob (bob@bob.bob), August 27, 1999.

Fed Up, I see what you mean, I rechecked my facts, and I should have actually said that the power grid will be VERY fine for Y2K....I know that's not what you want to here, but its a Fact.

Regards,

-- FactFinder (FactFinder@bzn.com), August 27, 1999.

Don't know why I'm bothering, everyones mind is made up, one way or another... can't go into too much detail, just read a press release this morning how we helped a medium sized firm convert over to a new system "over the weekend"...

"We" didn't do it, "We" came in on Monday, (actually Tuesday by the time we had enough grunts to re-enter 400 user profiles) morning to help clean the mess up because when they tested, they tested with supervisor rights.. all the users and privileges had gone in the crapper...

If this was a success, I'd hate to see the failures...

Probably already said too much...

-- deeper-by-the-day (c@c.com), August 28, 1999.