Hi all,

Well, the Y2K panic has hit here.

Today I opened a letter from the landlord of our office building:

    Most, if not all, computer systems either have, or may have,
    a programming malfunction or interface deficiency which could
    impede your ability to operate and otherwise live up to your
    lease obligations. ...

    We are insisting that you provide written affirmation and
    confirmation of your efforts to make certain that you are
    either currently Year 2000 Compliant or will be Year 2000
    Compliant in sufficient time to avoid any problems at the
    end of the millennium. ...

    (bold)It is imperative that you provide a response to this
    inquiry.(/bold) ...

    ...If you are not [Year 2000 Compliant] it will be necessary
    for you to provide a written statement concerning the status
    of your compliance, if any, and the plans you have and the
    schedule within which you intend to implement those plans
    in order to become Year 2000 Compliant. ...

And so on, for two pages. (Their caps, not mine.)

I have been contemplating possible responses.

   Sir:

   Although our corporate by-laws do not explicitly specify
   the use of the Gregorian calendar -- an omission that we
   will address at our next board meeting -- we have nonetheless
   complied with every year since 1984 with the sole exception
   of 1987, when we misread our calendar and accidentally
   repeated 1985. We anticipate complying with 2000
   at 0700 UTC January 1, 2000. If there is any change in our
   schedule, we will inform you in writing within ten
   business days.

Or:

   Sir:

   Our lease obligations as spelled out in our 24-page lease
   agreement are, in summary, (a) pay the rent, and (b) don't
   stink up the halls. With regard to (a), we have an adequate
   supply of pens with which to write rent checks, and with
   regard to (b), this will serve as written certification
   that company policy requires all programmers to bathe at least
   semimonthly. Although we have been somewhat lax in enforcing
   this policy, we will insure that all programmers have complied
   on or before December 31, 1999 despite the potentially
   detrimental effect on their productivity.

   Please note that the tenant across the hall has been using
   the same battered carton of half-and-half since
   March 17, 1995, and this may become an issue early in 2000.
   We would not want you to confuse our programmers with
   their cream.

Or:

   Sir:

   This will serve as our written notification that we intend
   to switch to all-manual accounting beginning on January 1,
   2000.


But mostly, I'd like to find out which lawyer and/or consulting firm put
this bee in their bonnet. It seems pretty simple to me: we don't pay the
rent in 2000, they kick us out, same as 1998. Why do they need a written
Year 2000 Compliance plan? What do they mean by Compliance? And what are
they going to do with it?

   Sir:

   Our plans are to modify our data storage algorithms so
   as to employ ternary coding on unmonitored date fields.
   These will be maintained by a stochastically-scheduled
   calendar examination daemon via a Backus-Naur network
   probe. Probes will continue using Ballmer hyperplastic
   sensitivity until June 1, 2000, and on a Krebs cycle as
   necessary thereafter to insure continued compliance.
   Quantum free-energy effects will be limited by extensive
   modification of Poincare parameters to the Schroedinger
   equations applicable to those dates where the significance
   of these factors exceeds the Chandrasekhar limit.

   We trust this will meet with your requirements.

Geez, even my mother asks me once a month whether I'm "protected" against
the Year 2000. (Last time, I told her that we'd put condoms over all the
keyboards and now we're not afraid of _anything_.) At least she doesn't
ask for a written plan.

-- Bruce

PS. There, I've avoided the temptation to go storming over to the
landlord's office. Now if I can just avoid the temptation to CC them on
this post...

- B









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