On This Day Pre-Y2K
Confused by any of the jargon you see below? Check the Y2K Glossary!
April 6, 1999 Permalink
I suggest everyone who feels that there will be disruptions better get their medications stocked up (being careful with expiry dates of course).
This JIT delivery bottleneck is absolutely ludicrous. I use a fairly common ointment and only use moderate quantities. Twice, in the last four times I’ve gone to get it, one of the major pharmacies in our town has been out of it. One of the other times, they were able to give me only 50 of the 100 grams. They told me to come back the next day for the other 50 grams. When I went back, they only had 30 grams for me and told me to try the next day for the final 20 grams. It was absolutely pathetic. It showed me that the actual amount of stock they have is virtually nothing!
If the daily truck doesn’t arrive, they’re hurting real bad.
If you have any medications that you just have to have, just be aware that JIT delivery is not your friend, and plan accordingly.
—Craig, Time Bomb 2000 Forums (LUSENET), 04/06/99
Sure, the real stories get steadily worse but they degrade in a way that almost fools the mind, slight of mind as the magicians say. The stories get worse because the work has not been done.
1. Done by September 1998, they said.
2. Certainly done by December 31, 1998, leaving a full year for testing.
3. By Thor, the U.S. will be done by March 31, 1999 or my name isn’t Al Gore.... and I’ll clench my fist and shake it to show that I’m pumped.
4. Oh, and banks will flood the press with “Good News!” I expected BankBoston to declare compliance by late winter or early spring 1999. Oopsie, they sold out to Fleet. Could this be Y2K? I donno. I’m clueless.
The new date for compliance is July 31, 1999, leaving 5 full months for testing and contingencies. Does the press talk about missing deadline after deadline? No, the spin, the crank, is on how the fiscal year bounds problems aren’t taking down the Fortune 5,000.
But it took 6 months, a year, 18 months, for IT and financial problems at Maxwell Online, PhyCor, and Oxford Medical to make the press. Anyone with a Nexis account can search on these stories. The Maxwell Online story played out in the 1990-1991 timeframe. PhyCor was 1998 and Oxford Insurance was 1996-1997.
The middle management is screaming, demanding overtime, killing the programmers like Timothy Wruk. The CEOs and CIOs are still dozing. This story is playing out worse than I thought it would.
—Cory Hamasaki, Cory Hamasaki’s DC Y2K Weather Report, 04/06/99
