The Long Shadow of Y2K

Hugh Pickens writes "It seems like it was only yesterday when the entire world was abuzz about the looming catastrophe of Y2K that had us both panicked and prepared. Ten Years ago there were doomsday predictions that planes would fall from the sky and electric grids would go black, forced into obsolescence by the inability of computers to recognize the precise moment that 1999 rolled over to 2000 and for many it was a time to feel anxious about getting money out of bank accounts and fuel out of gas pumps. "Nobody really understood what impact it was going to have, when that clock rolled over and those digits went to zero. There was a lot of speculation they would reset back to 1900," says IT professional. Jake DeWoskin. The Y2K bug may have been IT's moment in the sun, but it also cast a long shadow in its wake as the years and months leading up to it were a hard slog for virtually everyone in IT, from project managers to programmers." "'People were scared for their jobs and their reputations," says CIO Dick Hudson, Staffers feared that if they were fired for failing to remedy Y2K problems, the stigma would prevent them from ever getting a job in IT again. "Then there was the fear that someone like Computerworld would report it, and it would be on the front page," Hudson adds. Although IT executives across the globe were confident that they had the problem licked, a nagging fear followed them right up until New Year's Eve. While most people were out celebrating the turn of the century, IT executives and their staffs were either monitoring events in the office or standing by at home. Afterwards came the recriminations and backlash as an estimated $100 billion was spent nationwide for problems that turned out to be minimal. Others says the nonevent was evidence the Y2K effort was done right. "It was a no-win situation," says Paul Ingevaldson. "People said, 'You IT guys made this big deal about Y2K, and it was no big deal. You oversold this. You cried wolf.' ""

Comments

This kind of hype was exactly the problem

[petes_PoV]

Not the tech. issues, but the pundits rattling on about things they knew nothing about. Painting doomsday scenarios that were lapped up by the gullible - or those who enjoy nothing more than making a crisis out of a molehill.

We see exactly the same reaction today about all the issues that face us (whether personal, local, national or world-wide). The considered, thoughtful and measured responses that would (given a chance) produce equitable solutions with a minimum of fuss get washed away by the ignorant but vocal commentators in the media. These people don't care about the problem, or finding a solution. All they want is the cameras pointing in their direction.

Re:This kind of hype was exactly the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

The reporters that had no idea still irritate me to this day when they mention Y2K. I've seen again and again supposedly enlightened reporters whimsically refer to Y2K as a big "myth". It was a serious problem and the reason nothing bad happened was down to the fact people did so much effort in preventing it. The hype (although blown our of proportion) was due to the truth that there was a genuine problem and it required a large amount of man power to fix it (and a large segment of companies waited until the last minute to fix it). And yet reporters go on spouting arrogantly how Y2K was a giant scam, or boogie man spread by IT.

Basically there are fools who only see money down a drain, because people have a tendency to ignore disasters unless they actually happen. Planes dropping out of the sky might of been an exaggeration by rumour mongers, (I'm not sure, anyone care to correct me?), but serious global problems aren't such a dumb idea as a result of a few major systems crashing.

Re:This kind of hype was exactly the problem

[theguyfromsaturn]

Yes. It's very similar to the problems faced by health services on occasions like the H1N1 vaccination program. If the vaccination efforts are successful, and no alarming wave of deaths hits the world, then "obviously it was oversold and all those vaccination programs are money down the drain". If they turn out not to have covered all the bases and something terrible happens, then obviously "they failed to take proper measure to protect the population". Even a major success in public health can only be perceived as a failure for the lack of consequences (unless they tackle and endemic disease that has taken its toll for generations, but many of those cases have been tackled already). They are permanently stuck in a no-win situation.

Re:This kind of hype was exactly the problem

[bonze]

I'm reminded of Nassim Taleb's alternative-universe story about unsung (or worse, derided) heroes in The Black Swan: A congressperson pushes through legislation mandating reinforced aircraft cockpit doors in 1998: as a consequence, 9/11 never happens, because would-be hijackers know they're not going to be able to break down the cockpit door.

The congressperson loses the next election because, hell, hundreds of millions of dollars were thrown away on a non-existent problem!

Re:Oversold?

[Ephemeriis]

A great many computer systems used two digit dates, and would treat '00' as a date in the past. Changing this fundamental fact would take an awful lot of work; not changing it would mean that all these computer systems break on Jan 1st 2000.

Allot of work was done, and most all important computer systems didn't suffer from any serious problems.

What is being oversold?

I suppose there were 'cowboy' consultants exploiting the problem by offering to come in and look at your recently acquired IT infrastructure, charging huge amounts for a simple thumbs up. That doesn't undermine the severity of the problem though.

The problem wasn't with the IT folks... Not even the 'cowboy' consultants who tried to scare up some income. The problem was with the media coverage.

There were reports on how all your money would vanish overnight, trains would derail, nuclear power plants would melt down, missiles would launch themselves, planes would fall out of the air... The same kind of silliness and paranoia we're now seeing in relation to the 2012 thing... Except it was being reported as real, impending, and IT's fault.

If you talk to someone who was working in IT during the whole Y2k thing, they'll probably tell you stories about long hours and stress and frustration.

If you talk to someone who was working in management during the whole Y2k thing, they'll probably tell you similar stories about long hours and stress and frustration.

If you talk to some random person on the street about Y2k they're likely to mention how the world was supposed to end and it was all kinds of hyped up and nothing ever happened. They never saw anyone putting in long hours. They never saw the effort that went into making sure that nothing happened. All they saw were the crazy news stories and docu-dramas about the impending disaster.

The problem is that now, because nothing tragic happened, the IT industry in general has lost credibility with the general public. So when someone suggests that we're running out of IP addresses... Or that GPS may start failing soon... Or that there's some nasty bug on the way and you really ought to update your computer... The general public just rolls their eyes and ignores the warning.

And, of course, it doesn't help that the media continues to report on things they don't understand...

Remember the DST change a little while back? Our local news programs were reporting that you better run Windows Update and patch your computer or you'd lose data. They literally said you'd lose data. Because your computer didn't know that it should automatically change the time by an hour...

And then there was all the paranoia about Conficker. I believe I even saw reports about Conficker on CNN. We had clients who were afraid to turn on their computers, even after we'd assured them a dozen times that they weren't infected.