Confessions of a Y2K denier

Computers that were scheduled to be replaced in two to three years time were all of a sudden found to be non Y2K compliant and immediately replaced. Forward planned system projects were immediately started upon. This created a lot of work and fuelled demand for ICT workers. Into the void stepped many “instant ICT professionals”, as there was money to be made “in them thar hills”.

Two other events also fuelled the ICT industry at this time, the introduction of the GST (all accounting systems had to be changed to cater for the new tax) and the Dot Com boom, the so-called “New Economy”. By 2001 it was all over. Y2K didn’t happen, GST was implemented smoothly and the Dot Com boom became the Dot Com crash (it was not a new economy, just a different, albeit more efficient means of distributing goods and services).

There were however, significant consequences for the ICT industry. With up to five years work completed in the space of a couple of years, there was no more demand for ICT workers. The industry went into melt down as companies tightened budgets and stopped ICT spending.

The result was a lot of unemployed ICT professionals, both real and purported. Many left the industry never to return. Young students were turned off studying ICT and choosing it as a career. Now that ICT spending has returned to normal, the industry is in the midst of a skills shortage. Many companies cannot get ICT workers and their businesses are suffering from systems in dire need of upgrades.

A good friend of mine who left the ICT industry to pursue a career in the health and fitness industry laughed at me when I said his ICT skills are in big demand. He is 45 who looks 30, never been fitter. He works his own hours and is earning more than ever. To him, he has the perfect life-work balance job. Why would he ever return?

A supposed date problem that was not fully understood by the public, and experts that were not listened to, as the moneymen moved in causing untold damage to the ICT industry and business in general: they are still feeling the pain. Perhaps there are lessons to be learned.

POSTSCRIPT: The Daily Planet, early edition, serial date 50327 (14 Oct 2037): Building workers excavating a site for a new shopping mall in down town Metropolis uncovered a metal hatch. Upon opening it, a family emerged. Their first words were, “Did the planet survive Y2K”. “What is Y2K”, the workers replied.

* If you type in the date 8 Jan 2007 into a cell in Excel, copy that cell then do a paste special values into another cell, you will be presented with the serial date. When dealing with dates it is always good practice to use the 8 Jan 2007 (dd mmm yyyy) format, as you will eliminate confusion. 08/01/2007 means 01 August 2007 in the USA.

** A bug in the Excel serial date calculation returns an incorrect day for the first two months of 1900. This is because 1900 was treated as leap year when it was not. The bug originated in Lotus 123 and Microsoft replicated the bug for compatibility reasons.