The great anti-climax
For each and every one of you who has worked for the past several years, and to each of you who will be sitting in the office over this holiday weekend: Thank you. Even if everyone you know shrugs and asks "What was the big deal?" on Monday morning, you have earned a huge round of applause and I only wish this column were streaming audio-enabled so you could hear the clapping.
Just what has happened? And what will happen this weekend? We IT people know the answer is "a lot," but for those of you just joining the discussion, let me sum up the reasons why there will not be major computer problems that lead to the collapse of economic infrastructures around January 1, 2000:
• Corporations and government spent somewhere between $300 billion and $400 billion on Y2K testing and repairs, though we'll never know for sure how much.
• Utilities worked collectively to develop international contingency plans for Y2K, even after discovering very low levels of actual Y2K problems in their systems.
• Government agencies took years (in the case of the U.S. Social Security Administration) or months of intense work (as, apparently, happened in China) to prepare for Y2K.
• The Federal Reserve, having overseen the repair of Y2K in the nation's banking industry, has pumped an extra $200 billion in cash into circulation to ensure that there is plenty of money at the bank if you absolutely need to see it in your hand. Fewer than a half dozen banks are not Y2K ready, but there may be a serious increase in bank robberies - remember Willy Sutton's reply to the question "Why do you rob banks?" "Because it's where the money is," Sutton said, and there's more money in banks right now than at any time.
• Approximately 200,000 people are working over the weekend touted as the biggest party in history.
• And, that's just a small fraction of the story….
On the other hand, some of the doom-and-gloomers have made piles of money offering the public scads of poorly researched books about the end of the world as we know it. Some consultants with shady backgrounds have extracted massive amounts of money from clients. Survival supply shills have relieved themselves of the millions of surplus dried meals left over from the Cold War. Some folks have done all the above, writing books full of unfounded assertions, charging money for consulting services, and selling survival supplies on the side.
Several people, most recently an unlucky "preparer" near Milwaukee who set his house ablaze when his stockpiled gasoline cans ignited, have suffered grievous losses due to their Y2K over-preparation. There have been Y2K suicides. Marriages have suffered when one spouse caught Y2K paranoia and the other turned a blind eye to it - I have received some of the saddest email from these "split" households.
Throughout, Y2K costs have been compared to other massive projects in history, like the Vietnam War. "Y2K cost as much as Vietnam," many have said, apparently forgetting the 55,000 American and million-plus Vietnamese lives lost in that war. Too, we forget that the $500 billion spent on Vietnam only paid the cost of weapons and moving troops, while the cost of casualties and devastation in the war was never added up. Except for the paranoid and over-preparers who have sacrificed far too much of their savings to purchase unneeded supplies and will suffer for it, there is no comparison in human terms to a war - Y2K has been just a project, albeit an extremely important one.
If the effort and expense had not been made, society would have stumbled into this New Year without the awareness and repairs that will prevent major problems. It's impossible to say what would have happened if Y2K had not been addressed by IT professionals around the world, but it is certain it would have been more costly than the $300 billion to $400 billion spent globally on testing and remediation. The cost of just one major city falling into chaos because of an unexpected power outage or supply-chain break - in lives and economic consequences - would have outweighed the expense we've endured in the run-up to Y2K. Hey, we got off cheap.
But, recognizing that much needed to be done, we should not include the doomers in our congratulations. These people, who have exploited fear to push the most anti-social and back-handed economic agendas, did not do anyone any favors. For every family that will have to forego other expenses because they spent far too much on Y2K supplies after reading the irresponsible rants of the doomers, these profiteers should receive a smart blow to the cheek. Or, perhaps we should just turn our other cheek and record the identities of these people so that they will never be trusted enough to get away with this kind of abuse, again. In any case, if, on Monday morning, a doomer claims to have saved the world by raising his voice to warn people that the end of the world was nigh, give him a smack for me.
Because, folks, it was the IT community and not the survival community that got us through this scathed, but largely undamaged, no matter what happens this weekend.
There will be some problems, but organizations are ready. There will be glitches, but people across the globe have readied intelligent responses. Lots of smart people, and a few dumb ones, have thrown themselves into Y2K repairs and contingency planning. With an army like that, we're clearly on the winning side.
Congratulations to you, the faceless programmers and managers who have worked tirelessly on Y2K. I salute and thank you for bringing this wretched journey to an end.