> Also in this issue -
>
> >The Wall Street Journal's "Work Week" column reveals a new and
> >surprisingly lucrative job category: Year 2,000 conversion worker.
> >It turns out that the need of business to change mainframe computers
> >so that they don't freak out when they come across the millenium is
> >so wide and so pressing that folks are getting hired on at a minimum
> >of $30,000 a year immediately after completing a six week training
> >course, with others in the field making twice that much. The column
> >reports that in a survey of 128 large companies, 60% say they are
> >hiring more Y2K (the hot new acronym, apparently) staff.
This stuff drives me crazy.
y2k is hardly a new buzzword. Most serious IT companies have 'VP
of Y2K Strategies' these days - they have for a year or 2 now.
Besides, the whole thing is a crock. Yes, a lot of things are probably
going to break on Dec31/99, stroke of twelve. So what? A lot of
things break all the time! Software sucks garbage the
way its being done. We all know this. Y2K is 0.01% of the overall
legacy nightmare we're in - tops.
Are you really going to trust (there's that word again!)
the legacy patches on top of legacy
patches all these '6-week training, 30K/year' folks are going
to stick on top of your bank's management systems?
Would you trust a doctor to slice you open on 6 weeks training,
$30K/year? Or a pilot to fly your plane?
The whole bloody mess is broken. The Y2K industry is snake oil
salesmen. The software industry is snake oil salesmen.
But you knew all this. I'm just ranting.
Ron