Starting to see real tangible signs of y2k problems beginning to surface. Went to small town city office in western PA to fix old sewage and garbage billing program I wrote 12 year ago. Clerk had just received water consumption reports from water company. Sewage billing is based on reports. The reports were totally inaccurate. Prior water meter reading did not agree with previous report. Water consumption figures not accurate. Funny thing is that the report came with a letter saying they knew report had problems because of y2k work but the consumption numbers were right. NOT! Red Cross came to city office and recommended backup power for essential services. Town manager told me they do not have backup generator for the fire department.

As to the program I wrote. It will not even accept mm/dd/00 as a valid date. Fortunately the language I used is y2k compliant and all I need to do is change date format to mm/dd/yyyy. Still will require 40 hours to change all screens and data files.

The billing clerk then said she had just received here personal phone bill with a due date of 04/04/04 (Bell Atlantic). Another client in St. Louis area told me here phone bill had no long distance service charges. Client in Long Island had his credit card fail at a Walmart. Clerk took it to another machine and it was fine. Told him this has been happening quite a bit. All these conversations occurred yesterday.

Just bumps in the road. But how many will it take before the wheels fall off the economny. At the very least the economny will need to slow down for these speed bumps.

veryconcerned@notveryoptomistic.com

-- (veryconcerned@westol.com), November 24, 1999

Answers

Speed bumps...that is a cool metaphor...when the Formula One economy hits these, it will flip out!!

-- K. Stevens (kstevens@ It's ALL going away in January.com), November 24, 1999.

Ooh well those in the "survivalist forum" will be quick to tell you, they being so utterly on top of it all, that if it has risen up and slapped them personally in the face it couldn't possibly be "real," and that you're just a silly ole scare troll.

Brace yourself as the pseudo "survivors" begin to open their mouths.

-- Paula (chowbabe@pacbell.net), November 24, 1999.

veryconcerned,

It will not even accept mm/dd/00 as a valid date.
Still will require 40 hours to change all screens and
data files.

How long have you realized that your program
was not Y2K compliant. Isn't it a bit late
to be remediating the code. No time for testing.
Your in big trouble IMHO.

Very concerned also!

-- spider (spider0@usa.net), November 24, 1999.

Interesting you should mention errors...we just received our long distance bill from AT&T with three months worth of charges on it. We had not received any charges the previous three months. Also, one of our credit cards where we owe a balance has not added interest charges now for several months. I'll let them find that error on their own...LOL. We will all probably be looking at lots of little errors for a while...how much sand does it take to slow the gears of commerce?

-- Me (me@home.now), November 24, 1999.

Hey, me too! I just got off the phone with Bell Atlantic and ATT removing the charges for long distance service. This is for my fax line which is incoming and local calls only. I had removed the long distance carrier in March of this year. ATT had no record of that, Bell Atlantic did which is a good thing since the ATT rep said that they would need a stop order from Bell Atlantic. Turns out not to be the case but I think things are going to get very interesting! Cheers, AGF

Oh, yea- the Bell Atlantic person (Katrina) handled the whole thing in a three way call in under five minutes including hold time at the ATT site. Way to go!!

-- drac (greenspanisgod@frb.giov), November 24, 1999.

When my telephone bill did not include the ATT long distance charges, I called the number. The nice young man said that if your account did not exceed 30 dollars that month, they would not send you a bill. I think he then said it would be done quarterly....but then all the charges, and all the taxes and all of the Gore Tax would be included, for each month. joy.

-- Mary (CAgdma@home.com), November 24, 1999.

Speed bumps? for the time being. I liken the problem to caltrops that finally have been exposed due to the erosion of time.

-- Guy Daley (guydaley@bwn.net), November 25, 1999.