STORY:
Y2K: OK to Go Back to Work

It's back to work and back to computer terminals without many Y2K concerns

(Everything2000) After a year of gearing up for the computer Y2K bug, spending billions of dollars fixing computers and spreading the news of possible complications: it's over! Y2K is OK, and as the world heads back to work today it's business as usual.

After a long and boring weekend at the office, Microsoft employees head back to work again. 300 worked as the clocks changed from 1999 to 2000, just in case of computer complications, but there weren't any. In fact, Microsoft employees say they can count the number of calls on one hand.

It was the same story worldwide as possible computer glitches went off without a hitch. Granted, there were some small problems here and there, but that's it. The Y2K bug looks like it was squashed and it appears the world has only to worry about small incidents.

Glitches hit government computers in Hong Kong and Mainland China. Police testing the sobriety of drivers in Hong Kong had to enter birth dates on breath-testing machine because of an apparent Y2K malfunction. Courthouse computers in Italy mixed up prisoner dates by 100 years. A few ATM machines shut down.

``We're seeing that there were no threatening effects in the companies,'' Salvador Bellido, vice president of the Spanish Confederation of Medium and Small Businesses, told the private news agency Europa Press. ``We think the media pressure worldwide has been excessive. We're beginning to think that all this has been set up for someone's benefit, I don't know if it was Bill Gates or who.''

Around the world, companies who had set up Y2K response teams began disbanding operations and sending workers home. It doesn't mean we won't see Y2K computer problems down the road. Most experts expect some sort of problems, but small ones that won't cause any major concerns.

It turns out Y2K is Ok, and life is back on track here in the first week of the year 2000. One positive side, those who stocked up on Y2K supplies won't have to buy water, batteries or canned food for quite some time.

DATE: 1/3/00

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