Don’t expect any deep tech talk from me to explain the details behind what was called the Y2K problem in the late 1990’s. For that, click here Year 2000 problemon Wikipedia for a somewhat better response than I could give. By the way Wikipedia launched after the swirl of Y2K in January 2001. In fact the whole time period from 1996 and 2002 was a swirl of multiple technology plotlines that included Y2K, telecom deregulation, the rise of the internet and the dotcom bubble.
Essentially, the billboard message for the great tech stage play Y2K was that at midnight entering the year 2000, the world was going to end because computer programs, as designed, might not handle switching two digits forward to denote the year 2000 which meant that we might be in a time machine taking us back to1900. Well something like that, and so the whole world needed every tech guy working on a fix to prevent an economic doomsday and/or a step back 100 years.
During that great tech stage play, I had a front row balcony seat to watch it unfold. Working then initially in a career centre as a consultant in a massive telecom company downsizing and by 1998 simultaneously in what was called an outplacement firm, I was party to hundreds of individual conversations with those tech guys (for it was largely men at the time) who were losing their jobs, while a number of them were fired up as it were to temporary contracts on Y2K projects.
On the fly, I learned more than enough telecom and tech talk in order to help reconstruct resumes and provide interview training for people in a job market that was rapidly changing. Some of the older workers who were all set to retire, were kept on a while longer to support the Y2K problem, what with their legacy mainframe and COBOL computer skills. I know several tech guys who were lured with big bucks to go to the USA just to hunker down in Y2K bunkers until it was over.
In addition to clients looking for career advice and support, I had a few friends in those days who worked for banks, insurance and pharma companies who would babble speak over dinners about the tech issues and about how much this was going to cost and how burnt out they were, expecting not to party New Year’s Eve 1999. As an aside, I recall standing on the front porch of my house watching fireworks from downtown Toronto – no bugs in my system, just red wine.
As the smoke was clearing from Y2K through 2000, came the Dot-com bubbleand again don’t expect me to explain all that, except to say that overinflated investment values in those internet WWW start-ups led to bankruptcies and overall market disruption. Then in 2002 another large telecom & tech giant, Nortel, began its decline and I had another balcony seat working with some of their laid off top talent to help as they worked their way through the turmoil.
Twenty five years have flown by and those who were in that late 90’s, early 00’s stage play have moved on. There isn’t a playbill program with their names in it to be found under any seats, but I still have a memory from my front row balcony seat of not only the plot lines, but a number of the cast members who made it through into a new era for telecom and tech. And I wonder with all the hype about AI in 2025, how will we see the next great tech stage play disrupt us all?
