Folks,

probably you will no longer hear information on Y2K but this article was
forwarded in our company to all people who had worked in this project - and I
find it good enough to share with this group of experts as well. You may find
yourself in this article - it's exactly what happened in our relation with our
customers (Why did we spend this money for nothing ????)

Happy reading, Andreas Schmidt, CSC, Germany



To all you heros!!  This article from COMPUTERWEEK says it all!

Doug



  Y2kNews
  11 January 2000      - COMPUTERWEEK
  The heroes of Y2k
  By Judy Backhouse

  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 cancelled 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 your 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.