The recent spate of incredibly lunatic actions from local authorities sent me off meandering down memory lane. I was elected to Lancaster City Council in May 1999, when plans for warding off the civilisation ending 'millenium bug' were in full swing. For my sins I was on the Audit and Support Services committee, which I was soon to chair.
At one of our first meetings the CEO was rambling on and on and on. To relieve the sheer tedium a colleague came out with a flippant remark which got us tittering like naughty schoolboys, you know the situation I am sure. We were duly rebuked for not taking the 'millenium bug' seriously.
The CEO then announced that the council wished to spend £30,000 issuing booklets to every household containing emergency telephone numbers should the worst happen. I questioned the wisdom of this as the numbers were already in local telephone directories. This sent the CEO into a frenzy about our group not taking the matter seriously culminating in the statement that: "The whole telcommunications system could possibly crash at midnight on the millenium!"
The irony was obviously too subtle, he never did see it.
Tee hee. But we never found out what would have happened if we hadn't spent all that money on people reprogramming stuff. Was it a giant hoax by the IT contractors, or was there something in it?
ReplyDeleteI suspect some IT johnny got the collywobbles and others saw a golden opportunity to cash in.Countries like Italy, I believe, spent zero and didn't implode.
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