-----Original Message-----
From: Mackey David <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: 'Ray E. Harrell' <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Victor Milne <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: Thomas Lunde <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Global List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>;
Future Work <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: February 09, 1999 5:48 PM
Subject: RE: Perhaps a stupid couple of questions
[snip]
David Mackey wrote:
"The coding problem was thought to be not a major issue 30 years
ago because no one thought the programs would be around by 2000. The
mentality persisted and the abbreviated date continued to be used up until
1998!
The problem is that software/manufacturing management (and
others) have not changed their horizons and still take a short view, ie they
are not into long-term planning. According to the Computer Society
President this short-term thinking is still evident. He asserts that if it
wasn't why did Microsoft issue software in 1998 that was not Y2K compliant?
Why have some of the computer software fixes still result in software
failing in 2030's? "
Victor Milne:
The mental inertia is frightening. Electrical power generation expert Rick
Cowles tells of attending a trade show in 1998. Among the new products there
was a piece of monitoring equipment with a date display using only two
digits for the year. Suspecting that the chip controlling the display might
not be y2k compliant, Cowles began to question the manufacturer's
representative, who did not know the answer and seemed annoyed to be asked.
You will find the account on the Westergaard Y2K page at
http://207.158.205.162/
David Mackey:
Thomas Lunde raised the questions about the lack of computer
training courses in fixing Y2K. It may be interesting to note that the
British government organised around 20 000 training places for the
unemployed to become 'Bug Busters' to assist small enterprises in the UK.
However, only a small percentage of places were taken up by the unemployed.
It would be interesting to find out why so few people took the opportunity
to train and find work in this area, particularly, according the Computer
Society President, that such training will lead to a career in the IT
industry, not just in Y2K work.
Victor Milne:
This is an interesting point. It occurs to me that governments are offering
many training programs to the wrong group. They should be offering them to
the underemployed rather than the unemployed.
The unemployed consist largely of two groups, the newly unemployed who have
held a job, often a demanding job, for many years, and the
chronically-unemployed who do not have much of a work history or skill base.
The newly-unemployed, for a long time (two or three years) tend to focus
their efforts on finding a job much like the one they lost (been there, done
that). Eventually they realize the jobs aren't there anymore and they take
what they can find--so you have nurses waiting tables, university arts grads
doing construction work and driving trucks, sales managers doing assembly
work, and machinists doing basic welding. Once they consider a radical
change in direction, they find work quickly and are no longer in the group
that the government wants to give training programs to. However, most of the
chronically-unemployed are probably very unsure of their ability to do IT
work. I wonder if it wouldn't work better to offer the underemployed a leg
up to a better position. They would then be vacating jobs, and the
chronically-unemployed might be glad to get a job that involved attaching
Part A to Part B with three sheet metal screws. After some experience at
that level they too might be able to move up.
Regards,
Victor Milne
