90% of their time was spent chatting in the halls or going for long coffee breaks--but that's true of all IT people in the financial industry.
But the 10% of the time they spent working was spent make some very minor changes, and then setting up elaborate "tests". Whole labs were set up to simulate the roll over, with whole copies of the systems running on a different time.
In non-IT companies, management has no way of overseeing IT depts. They just have to trust whatever IT says. And IT is in a position right now to demand huge amounts of cash for whatever they say is necessary. That was the case before Y2K and is still the case, and Y2K only improved their position in that regard.
These programmers in general are the most arrogant people--and mostly very conservative libertarian types. Even those with very low skill levels (like me) make up to $100,000 a year, after just one or two years of work experience. And they are just as sure they deserve it all as they are that the Starbucks slaves serving their coffee deserve $7/hr.
I've always thought it would be fun to start a HR consulting firm that would steer companies through the process of firing 90% of their IT staffs. Things would actually work better if they did that and just make the remaining 10% actually do some work. That's not wrong is it? Nothing wrong with firing arogant programmers, right? Anyone game?
-Zack
-----Original Message----- From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of Boff Tagstumper Sent: Tuesday, January 04, 2000 11:41 AM To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com Subject: Re: Y2-nuthin'?
I don't think the date rollover was a non-event, but one that at least some organizations did prepare adequately for. I think the Fed required that the market makers in government debt had to make sure that their systems were Y2K-OK several months ago and would actually go in and audit systems to confirm this.
On the other hand, (I'm just rumor mongering, mind you, so take this with a clump of salt) I've heard the Department of Agriculture Y2K preparedness was absolutely wretched, so folks who take an interest in the stats they produce might want to cast a cold eye on them in the coming months.
Oh, and ADP screwed up my employer's payroll on 12/31.
Rent's gonna be late... -- Curtiss Leung (subscribed from a new, siller address)
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