This forum is probably in no mood for the unsubstantiated, but......

I just got off the phone with my sister and brother-in-law.

At his place of employment they are unable to ship product: computers down (but not y2k, he says, sabotage(sp?))

At her place of business (a school) "computers all screwed up; clocks running fast."(?) She is not a computer person, but will find out more for me tomorrow.

For obvious reasons, I can't divulge the names of these places. The only reason I post it at all is because I believe that these things are happening all over the place. Certainly nothing that will affect anyone here; just an SME and a school.

Two paper cuts? 2 for 2?

It's not over. It's barely begun.

-- Me (me@me.me), January 03, 2000

Answers

I agree. Sat. went to local Lowes home store. The cash register could not read the bar code from any product from the roofing dept. The girl had to call to the office every bar code # and then ring the price into the register. Long lines and po'd customers. Today local hardware store's computer was down. The owner said their old computer wouldn't work and their new one one was being installed. Being a skinflint, he would wait till the last to spend the money. More sinisterly, my wife had a 2:30 appt. for some minor surgery at a large med clinic. We got there at 2:00 and was told that the appts. were messed up. The computer was down and they were trying to run on a first come basis. They could not reschedule either. Tommorrow would be on an emergency room schedule. Don't sell that Spam yet.

-- goldenokie (goldenokie@hotmail.com), January 03, 2000.

Me....

I'm not an IT but I do ok with my system and helpimg others solve issues with theirs. Today my sys suddenly acted up. I thought perhaps it was an attack by a polly- some for of DOS. I tried to go offline and it would not disconnect so I hit my 'restart' button and whadda ya know- comp wouldn't reboot. It acted like the button was stuck. I played with it for a bit and finally got it to boot. then I ran virus scan and scandisk. It froze up on the scandisk [a dos error I haven't fixed yet] So I rebooted and what do you know? Comp wouldn't boot. I disconnected a wire from the button and after several tries got it up. Tried to dial out- comes up saying the line is busy. Checked phone, line clear, tried 3X more and finally rebooted the comp again. booted properly and dialed out.

Y2K? Don't know...but the timing is strange. O-BTW. My BIOS and CMOS are supposed to be compliant as well as my OS. Did a couple of patches and such and the clock rolled over to 01/01/2000 with no probs.

-- Satanta (EventHoriz@n.com), January 03, 2000.

Today my printer jammed. Gave me a "paper jam" error at a critical time, so I sluuged it real hard and punched a hole through the housing. Still didn;t work. Canon Laser printer.

-- SH (squirrel@huntr.com), January 03, 2000.

More small problems: my sister-in-law was at a Fred Meyer just North of Seattle to fill a prescription. Long lines were caused because the insurance billing was messed up. ALL prescriptions had to be called in to each insurance agency to verify eligability before the prescription could be filled.

Also, there were long lines and PO'd customers at the regular check out stands because the debit card function wasn't functioning. Many customers were forced to leave their full grocery baskets because they could pay with their card.

How much of this is going on out there that isn't getting reported?

KC

-- KC (c0mpuguru@earthlink.net), January 03, 2000.

Correction: Should have read that the customers could NOT pay with their card. Oops...

KC

-- KC (c0mpuguru@earthlink.net), January 03, 2000.

KC, unfortunately MOST of it isn't getting reported, which is why I'm glad that SOME people are kind enough to report(to this site) what they DO hear (of). And what's on this site is undoubtedly just a drop in the bucket.

-- DB (tomG@h.com), January 04, 2000.

check-out clerk at local Sarbucks was cursing his cash register. I asked what was problem, he replied "damn Y2K - things been acting funny all day! ARRRRR"

-- Ishkabibble (ishman@home.com), January 04, 2000.

I went to the local Texaco Oil Change place today. It's like a Jiffy Lube. I've been there before, but they couldn't find me in thier computer. They set me up as a new customer.

the manager told me that they've put in new systems, and that especially since the new year, they've lost customer info.

No big deal for them, I guess, but a good indication that bad conversions do happen.

-- Duke1983 (Duke1983@aol.com), January 04, 2000.

Just hung up from 1800 flowers where I was trying to order something creative for Bulldog's family. The ACD agent in VA's 'puter crashed, she transferred me to customer service where I languished in queue. Y2K? who knows. Its 8:30 in the morning there, the week after New Years. Yes, I know, systems go south every day, but this isn't the week before Christmas, Mother's day or Valentine's day.

Paranoia on my part, maybe. Still, hmmmmm

-- Nancy (wellsnl@hotmail.com), January 04, 2000.

Lowes screwed up my account - had to call it in and reconfirm manually on Sunday night.

Sears had their signature pads screwed up on Sunday (again! - so this particular failure might not be directly year 2000 induced.)

Six of the smaller venders/retailers in the mall had "startup" or "default" screens up on the systems - and were on the phones trying to startup. Most stores were able to be up and running....but were definitive failures in a number of the shops.

-- Robert A Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), January 04, 2000.