By Kollengode S Venkataraman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Jan 12, 2000
It was Dec. 30, 1999. For days, doomsayers were preparing people for what could go wrong: Everything from missile control systems to the milk supply had the potential to go berserk. Traffic lights may not work, ATM machines might gobble up cards, the power could go kaput. The chatterboxes on the airwaves were advising people to have a few hundred dollars in cash, basic groceries stored for a week, and even hard copies of bank statements, just in case.
I was dithering between the doomsayer-inflicted anxiety and my instinctive apathy that I camouflaged as bravado. Insouciantly, I stayed put. Not allowed to carry over my vacation days, I vegetated at home, to the deep consternation of my beloved family. I ventured out only after my wife served me an ultimatum, threatening that she would deny me kitchen and other privileges if I did not at least go grocery shopping.
Finally, Jan. 1, 2000, dawned uneventfully. Peter Jennings ushered me into the new millennium, “time zone by time zone.” A New Zealander was shown flashing ATM receipts showing 01-01-00 at F112:01 a.m. Every missile was snug in its silo, and the only fireworks were the hyped-up celebrations. The next day, water, gas, telephones, and all other services were unaffected.
Naturally, after a restful vacation, I was eager to go to work. Y2K was the most hyped nonevent of the millennium, I thought. But little did I know that Y2K still had one last sting for me — and me alone.
At the office on Jan. 3, I couldn’t log on to my e-mail account. It said: “Permission denied. Talk to your system administrator.” My co-workers were nonchalantly clicking away at their machines.
It is an axiom that if everybody has the same problem, it is a non-problem. I there is a power outage in your neighborhood, you simply wait for the utility company to fix the problem. But if you’re sitting at home in the dark when your neighbors are having their well-lit holiday party, munching on goodies, you’d better call the electrician and be prepared to cough up big bucks. That summed up my situation.
Since I was the only person not able to log on to my e-mail account, I became antsy. I did what the computer asked me to do. I called the outsourced computer professional. He asked me to give him a few hours.
He got back with an explanation. I was indeed the victim of the dreaded Y2K bug — but, according to the only plausible theory, it was an attack in the most roundabout way.
I work for a corporation with offices all over the nation. In an office located in the middle of nowhere, they had hired computer consultants to fix their Y2K problems. As you may know, a disproportionate number of my fellow countrymen from India are computer jockeys. They worked coast to coast, moving from place to place, like migratory birds, fixing the Y2K problem for everyone.
One of these men carried the same last name as mine.
As 1999 wound down, the professional relationship between him and my company ceased. He flew away to better things.
The remote office deleted him from the central e-mail network.
Remember, this office is the boondocks of a less-accessible latter-day state of the union. The managers probably thought that the odds of having two people with the same unusual last name V-e-n-k-a-t-a-r-a-m-a-n would be so low that it was impossible. So, they apparently assumed that Kollengode S. Venkataraman was a ghost in the system, and “killed” me from the records. (It is beside the point that sometimes at work I wish that I were, indeed, a ghost.)
What a way to start the hyped-up New Millennium. To make matters worse for me, when many of my associates tried to send me e-mails, a cryptic message flashed on their screen: “Undeliverable. Addressee unknown.” A few of them anxiously and circumspectly inquired if I was “surplussed” during the holidays.
Fortunately, the computer wizards fixed my Y2K problem after a few days. I am now glad to be a fully wired regular guy in my company’s records.
Of course, I still have to go grocery shopping. END