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Archiver > PHILBRICK > 2000-01 > 0947968483


From: "CharlieSally" <>
Subject: Re: [PHILBRICK-L] Y2K Heroes
Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2000 15:34:43 -0500


Hear! Hear! I wholeheartedly agree. You, and so many others deserve
that "pat on the back".
Thank You to you all, Sal

_____________________________________________________________----
-----Original Message-----
From: Jack W. Ralph <>
To: <>
Date: Saturday, January 15, 2000 1:41 AM
Subject: [PHILBRICK-L] Y2K Heroes


>Dear Cousins,
>
>Please forgive this non-genealogical message, but I thought that you
>would all find it very interesting. FYI, I was one of the IT people who
>participated in preventing Y2K problems for the State of Nevada. I hope
>this information gives you a better understanding of what many people
>had to go through in order to insure that the rest of you didn't have to
>experience the disaster that was "predicted" by the media.
>
>Nevada Jack
>
>
> Y2K HEROES
> by Judy Backhouse
>
> Congratulations, indeed, to one and all.
>
>The truly crazy headed for the hills with fortified bunkers and
>ammunition. The more cautious bought water and tinned food. Even the
>most optimistic drew some extra cash the week before. Everyone
>speculated about the outcome.
>
>But in the IT world, we worked. We checked code. We corrected code. We
>tested code. We rolled dates forward and backward and forward and
>backward until our nerves were paper-thin. We upgraded hardware. We
>upgraded operating systems (to cope with the new hardware). We upgraded
>compilers (to cope with the new operating systems). We modified more
>code (to cope with the new compilers). And then we began the cycle again
>of testing and rolling forward and testing and rolling backward. We
>initiated great, complex Y2k projects. We compiled project plans. We
>filled in endless forms about the state of our Y2k projects. We wrote
>monthly reports about the progress of the Y2k projects. We went to
>meetings where we were told how the future of the company depended on
>the Y2k project being completed in time.
>
>We dealt with panicked business people. We soothed troubled nerves at
>dinner parties. We were asked to predict the outcome by distant cousins
>who knew we were "in IT". We became overnight experts in the working of
>diesel generators, photocopiers, motor vehicles and washing machines.
>And, collectively, we averted the disaster. Like superman of old, the IT
>professionals of today managed to intercept nothing less than the end of
>the world. In an industry where projects run notoriously over the most
>pessimistic time estimates, we met the deadline. The clocks ticked over
>to the year 2000 with nothing more than minor hitches.
>
>And were they grateful? Did the world thank us and laud us as the heroes
>we quite clearly were? No! They turned around and called it "all hype".
>They questioned the money spent. We did our jobs so damned well that the
>only question remaining was whether there had been any need to do the
>job at all.
>
>So, to all those IT people out there who slaved away at the Y2k problems
>over the past few years, who endured the pressure of fearful but
>helpless managers; who lost endless sleep testing things at night
>because there wasn't a separate test machine; who canceled their
>December leave; who couldn't be in exotic places to welcome the start of
>the new millennium; who stayed sober on New Year's eve because they were
>on standby; who went to work on the 1st and the 2nd to boot up the
>machines - I say put our feet up, pat yourselves and each other on the
>back and go and get some much needed sleep with a smug smile on your
>face. We did it.
>
>The IT people across the planet are heroes - even if unsung ones. Like
>housework, what we do is not appreciated unless we don't do it. But like
>the housewives of old we go on doing it, knowing that it is good,
>honest, necessary work - and that it gives us inordinate power. So, my
>fellow programmers, system administrators, database administrators,
>operators, analysts and support staff - congratulations on a job well
>done. Ours may be the youngest profession on the planet, but this 21st
>century belongs to us.
>
>
>
>
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