Y2K Phooey

by Steve Ciarcia

swear this is the last thing I'll write about Y2K. OK, a year ago I said there could be some Y2K glitches. As engineers, we know computers are only as good as the program code they run. If a lazy programmer didn't insert some kind of error checking or fallback provisions, it's possible that the code could stop dead in its tracks.

Maybe it was that fault of engineers like myself, who when asked if there could be difficulties, answered it honestly. What we didn't add was whether this uncertainty was significant or not. We should have thought more about who was listening to the message and not just that we were answering a technical question. I can't speak for all of you, but I know that when someone asks me if a technical problem can be solved, I tend to answer it in engineering speak. In essence, if the task is 99% solvable and 1% trouble, I will say, "Yes, it can be done, but situation X could make it not work." It can easily sound to someone that the odds are 50/50 for either situation.

Because we technical people are so involved in solving tasks, we often feel responsible when we are unable to do something. As a result, we automatically emphasize the tiny gotchas that inhibit 100% positive results rather than underscoring the 99% we might get right. Certainly, it has a lot to do with our personalities, but it also has a lot to do with how engineers view technical tasks. An engineer designing an anti-lock brake system for a car considers it a total failure if the end result has a 0.001% probability of not engaging at the right time. This is a radical example of course, but I think you get my drift.

There is also media-speak. These days, accuracy is a matter of interpretation and journalists will often see events with the opposite slant that you might. For example, if there is a new dot com IPO on the horizon with a 1% potential and 99% risk you'lI read or hear, "In light of the vast fortunes being made on dot com companies these days the potential for success is assured."

As for Y2K, we've been had. Informed technical people answered the media's questions about the Y2K risk that there was some possibility of isolated problems. This was reinterpreted by less-technical pundits like Ed Yardeni, an economist for Deutsche Bank, who told Fortune magazine that the probability of recession was 70%! In the end, the media frenzy prophesied a scenario of 100% catastrophe. A lot of scared people started thinking about bomb shelters for the first time in 35 years and bought enough bottled water to fill Lake Erie.

By now we all know what really happened on Jan 1st. Nothing! Nada! Zero! I mean, the media needs to have their clocks cleaned for this fear fest! And remember people, this the same gullible group that we count on to provide the news tomorrow!

Were all of us who knew it shouldn't be all that bad, stupid? Or, just not vocal enough? Was this Y2K hype so well orchestrated that we were blindsided?

I'd like to say I was totally unaffected, but I wasn't. No, I didn't stock up on water, buy a generator, or fill all the kerosene heaters (we have all that stuff already out here in snow country). Instead, we threw a New Year's party! That was the good news. The bad news was all the hysteria again. We had a few people tell us that they don't venture out on New Year's Eve, but we also had one couple call at the last minute and tell us they were just too frightened to go out. Of course, they live in a town that had block watchers on every street with emergency flags ready to signal roving police cars because (according to the media) the power and telephone system would inevitably fail. It's no wonder they were frightened.

It was interesting that night to watch the midnight celebrations as they progressed across the Pacific and Europe. By the time the Eiffel Tower lit up the midnight sky in Paris, everyone at my party (primarily business professionals) was questioning why there were no reports of catastrophe anywhere. The media was certainly on the lookout all over the world but there hadn't even been a traffic light that didn't work correctly from what I saw.

I read someplace that the US spent about half a trillion dollars on Y2K. AT&T spent $500 million alone. How much do you think Belize spent on Y2K readiness? OK, I'll put a damper on my own hype here but wasn't Russia supposed to implode on Jan 1st? Weren't Greece, Italy and a pile of other modern countries that depend upon computers, and who weren't spending 50% of their GNP on programmers, supposed to have gone belly up on the 1st?

Another columnist recently said that if we went to the doctor and ended up with a heart bypass instead of an antacid that should have been prescribed, we'd probably go berserk. As a matter of expenditure versus the reality of the problem, I think we did far too much to achieve "Y2K compatibility." For all of us businesses who spent thousands of dollars updating software and operating systems to satisfy the demands of frightened customers and financial institutions, all I can say is phooey. Y2K was a significant non-event and it cost a lot more than it should have. It is said that history is destined to repeat itself if we don't learn from the past. Surely, if we don't want to repeat this fiasco, then we should also heed another wise old adage as it applies to Y2K beneficiaries: Follow the money!