As I had written in a previous thread here, I presented Y2K to my company's senior management yesterday. The reaction seemed fairly laissez-faire. But after I left the room, unknown to me, debate continued for another 40 minutes over such topics as "Are we obligated morally to alert our employees to preparedness? If so, can we be held liable legally for 'bad' advice?" I was surprised and relieved to learn this. Had them thinking in terms they'd never thought before, I was told.

I came home and spoke to my wife about it. She's a wonderful wife and very much a GI herself (thank God!) She reminded me that soaking up Y2K takes time. Few of us "got it" in one blush - usually, it's more like Chinese water torture with the facts until we get torn from our presumptions.

I asked where the management team stood on the issue and they lined up as a 1, two 3's, and two 5's. I was told that the two 5's weren't 5's before the presentation and that one of the 3's had been a 1.

I hope to let all of you know that even in areas where you feel you had little impact (with friends, family, townspeople, business and social leaders, etc.), the information you spread does take root. Depends on whether the media or someone else or another visit from you waters that plant... eventually, everyone will "get it," it just depends on how soon prior to January 1.

Praying for rain on everyone I know...

-- Brett (savvydad@aol.com), March 02, 1999

Answers

Brett, many thanks for relaying the story. Sounds like you are on the way to gathering the herd so to speak.

The learning curve on y2k is tremendous and the learning curve on convincing folks of the problem is almost as large.

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), March 02, 1999.

Brett,

The former journalist in me is dying to know which company you work for, where, and how large. I know I can't expect you to answer that without putting your job in jeopardy, but any clues would be appreciated. Might give us a barometer to guage what may be happening internally in the rest of corporate America. At the very least, is it a publicly held company? If so, Fortune 500? Thanks for whatever you can provide.

-- FM (vidprof@aol.com), March 02, 1999.

FM,

You're right - I won't divulge that, but I can tell you that internally our Y2K hit is almost negligible. The ERP software we use has no issues and our plant machinery has only one with the Allen- Bradley PanelView. Frankly, Y2K won't hurt us within our four walls and if you have any confidence in my perspective of Year 2000, you can understand my employer's confidence in that assessment.

No, we're not Fortune 500, though our customers include many retailers in the 500. I don't think we're that much different than other manufacturers with the exception that most of the vendors with whom I have spoken don't have a full-time, dedicated Y2K person - instead they seem more like the Italian solution ("Don't bother me with Y2K now, I'm grading papers.")

Although I was hoping for more comprehension of the issue, I did at least get some direction. Interesting stuff, and I may post it later.

Waiting for the Senate committee...

-- Brett (savvydad@aol.com), March 02, 1999.