Just a quick heads up about me, I work for a small (less than 100 employees) computer wholesale/distribution company. We just had a presentation this morning outlining our growth plan for the coming year. It was filled with optimistic projections of growth of almost doubling business over the next year, we get the majority of our components from the asian market, in other words, if they aren't available or extremely limited in supply, we go out of business. This company has computer programmers and technicians in abundance and they all nodded knowingly thru-out the presentation as if this was all going to come to fruition, what am I missing here?

-- Michael (michaelteever@buffalo.com), December 10, 1999

Answers

Nobody wants to be the one to break the bad news?

-- John (jh@NotReal.ca), December 10, 1999.

Likewise---either I am stupid, following misinformation or experiencing the pain my acute perception of the indicators disconnect all around me. Go Figure which, I can't---jes keepin on keepin on and throwing rocks at the rest.

-- John Q (Goinoutthedoor@work.com), December 10, 1999.

Maybe, just maybe, there IS no bad news.

Yeah sorry, I know that opinion is not highly regarded around these parts. I know it must be hard for you people to come to grips with that after two years of being scared out of your wits. Must be a real shocker. Oh well, you're going to have to deal with reality sooner or later.

-- (just@another.programmer), December 10, 1999.

We are all living a script. If you scratched the surface, like I have recently with friends, after the initial yadda yadda yadda about life in general, it turns out that people are very knowledge about Y2K, and are preppin for it. You have to get beyond the yadda yadda yadda....

-- timemachine (con@tin.uum), December 10, 1999.

Timemachine, sure hope you are right, I know I sure am.

-- Michael (michaelteever@buffalo.com), December 10, 1999.

Have you ever been in a situation where you realized that it was TOO LATE to do anything, so you figured you might as well "hope for the best" and just keep on chugging? Like, maybe on your way back from a two week vacation in the boonies, you suddenly realized that you may have left the water running in the bathtub in your house ... but you could not be completely sure either way.

What the heck, too late to worry about it now, "the damage is done", if there is any.

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.cum), December 10, 1999.

Perhaps, it is a matter of greed.

No one wants to hear that there may be disruptions to the system that is financing their kids' college educations, buying a new car, purchasing a bigger and better house.

-- zeaal (zeaal@mindspring.com), December 10, 1999.

Any accountant understands it.

Every business is assumed to be a going concern, that is, they are expected to survive into the future. That is an assumption of all financial statements.

If that assumption is not valid then all managers and employees need not attend any meetings about anything, much less the future. The fact that a meeting was called is based on an unstated assumption that the company will survive. If you like questioning assumptions try walking into any church on Sunday and screaming that God does not exist!

-- cgbg jr (cgbgjr@webtv.net), December 10, 1999.

KOS is right. That's the attitude where I work. We've done what we know to do, let's see if it works. If it doesn't, everyone else is pretty much in the same boat, right? There will be "business as usual", just the definition of "usual business" will change.

-- margie mason (mar3 mike@aol.com), December 11, 1999.