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The ‘only’ thing I did was get maybe $200 in cash just in case card readers crashed, and paid off my mortgage (which I did in June of 1999) just in case the bank (which was the B of Fucking A) ‘lost’ all my early payments. If I had had a decent and reputable bank, I wouldn’t have been in such a hurry.
No, as honestly I knew it was over blown. I was in the software industry at the time and I knew countless developers that we had put in years of work to make sure that systems did not go offline when the date changed. Of course we always knew there were going to be edge cases such as some of the banking systems, etc. but the grids, etc. were extremely tested as well as avionics etc. Honestly I am just glad it didnt’ happen but of course it gave the whole it was over blown community something to gnaw on without seeing what happened behind the scenes.
No, although I probably would have bought some extra food if I hadn’t been dead broke. I had to work extra hours for New Year’s Eve though because my job was worried something would happen and they would need extra coverage. So that was nice for my wallet.
Just some cash. We typically didn’t keep a lot on us. I think we took out about 200$, which was a lot for us at the time. What still cracks me up today is that they recommended that you get an extra month or two of your medications! Like, how? No pharmacy would do that, and no health insurance would pay for that!
Yes. With 3 kids and an unemployed brother in law sleeping on the couch I did stock up on toilet paper and laundry detergent. For some reason I never seemed to have enough TP and was always washing dozens of towels.
I have work buddies that prepared for it. They had entire basements or stalls in their barns filled with barrels of water! I thought that was so bizarre because if the computer programs had not been fixed in time, someone would be there on hand to manually keep the water system going, they’d already announced that in the local paper! Yikes. I don’t know what sort of news they were listening to at the time, but it seemed to be a panic inducing type.
I really didn’t think there would be any problems, but I did fill up both cars with gas, just in case the pumps didn’t work. I already had enough cash for emergencies, otherwise I would have probably taken a few hundred dollars out of the bank too.
I was a typical broke college student in 1999. I couldn’t afford to hoard anything even if I wanted to. Figured I’d just join a roving apocalypse gang if everything fell apart.
Not a thing. I think the world was worried about computer glitches but once companies recognized it, they worked on fixing their codes. Not sure what hoarding would have done for anyone.
I had to work that New Year’s Eve night. The owner of the dive bar I worked at suggested that we bring an “extra” gun with us that night. (Having guns at work was normal as at least SOME of the staff was armed at all times anyway). I brought an AK-47 in a guitar case with me that night. Other employees brought shotguns, etc. Didn’t need it, everything went smoothly (at least as smoothly as normal). That’s my crazy Y2K thing that I did. 🙂
Had a buddy that was a big “2A gun guy” and really went down the Y2K rabbit hole. He listened to a LOT of Rush and Neil Boortz, plus G. Gordon Liddy on the radio. He started hoarding MREs, had a few 55 gallon drums filled with water, generators, extra ammo, etc. I kind of chuffed when I saw it all in his outbuilding and he got annoyed and said something along the lines of “I’m not gonna be watching TV on new year’s eve and be surprised when the power goes down.” I told him the eastern United States is in the 18th time zone, and if something DOES happen, you definitely won’t be surprised like that. I also had a great deal of confidence that anything that happened would be minor. And I also reminded him to go watch the Twilight Zone episode “The Shelter.” It was just him, his sweet wife and their little girl. At some point, friends or not, the neighborhood will be coming for that food and water in a total collapse.
No, but
My former brother in law took the day off work. He knew it was going to be horrible. I kept trying to tell him the worst thing that would happen is maybe some billing mistakes. Airplanes are going to fall out of the sky. Cars wouldn’t start. The power grid was going to fail, and we’d be cold since it was the middle of winter.
My daughter and I walked to their house wrapped up in blankets. We knocked on their door and asked if everyone was ok. He opened the door, gave me a dirty look, and went back to watching TV.
We were just checking to make sure they were OK. He never understood my sense of humor.
No, but I remember the local TV news interviewed this couple who had their basement packed with stuff, including barrels of water. This was so dumb in the sense those folks were “outed” or “doxxed” on local TV so that IF there had been a crisis, all their neighbors would now know where to go and raid for supplies!!
No. I worked in banking where potential impacts were the most concerning. However, the industry worked to fix the issues. Tbf a few things went south but they were really minor like firmware on credit card machines etc.
The reason it was nothing is because we worked to fix it
We had a big party planned, so I laid in a lot of food but not much more than I expected folks to eat. If the world had collapsed in the NE US we would have had many hours to know we needed to cancel the party.
Did check that we had batteries and plenty of firewood.
A friend of mine made a killing buying generators in Jan 2000 and reselling them when an ice storm hit in March.
We had a little extra food/cash just in case (me – husband was unconcerned.)
The hospital where I worked was trying to get the nursing students and younger nurses on the night shift that night as we were the only ones who would still know how to manually calculate IV drip rates in case all the IV poles crapped out at the same time (they didn’t.) They also anticipated an uptick in mental health visits (there were.)
Nope, not at all. There was a bit of apprehension, as in when the clock hit midnight we didn’t go “Yaaay!” We kinda sat quietly for a minute to see if planes start falling out of the sky. But the TV stayed on, the microwaves still worked, Aussies where in 2000 for almost a day now and seemed fine.
I’d say, and maybe this is nostalgia talking, that the ’90s and very, very early ’00s were a very positive time. We had hope in the bright future. Yes Y2K was a thing, but a lot of people came out of retirement and retooled and fixed a lot of stuff to make sure it works. And there’s been recent history of global cooperation on such issues, like that time we got rid of the chemicals that was destroying the ozone layer. That was neat. So there was hope that Y2K wouldn’t be a serious issue.
Nope. We didn’t do anything to guard against the breakdown of society that all the chicken littles were predicting. My FIL booked a table at a really nice restaurant downtown and we partied. The only downer was that it absolutely pissed down rain and we were on the patio. The owner moved us inside and gave us a complimentary bottle of champagne. ‘It rained quite hard’ was my take away from that NY.
I just did my grocery shopping NYE after work, but that’s because my regular grocery day would have fallen on January 1, and I didn’t want to have to go out on a day off for groceries.
So it had the effect of stocking up on food, but it was really just avoiding an extra errand.
Yes – bottled water. I figured that supply chains could be maintained manually no matter what but embedded controllers might not. I couldn’t do anything about electricity but water was more essential and easy to provide for.
No. It was pretty clearly hype. I worked in a bookstore, and sending back books predicting apocalypses, financial crashes and other calamities was a regular occurrence. (I ended up having to set up the discount rack for our stock of Y2K books when nothing at all happened.)
It was my senior head of HS so all I cared about was going out with my friends but my friend’s mom filled up the bath tubs for extra water and stocked food. She also bought a gun I guess in case somebody came after her bath tubs water.
We bought some extra canned food that would have lasted us a couple weeks. That was about it. At most I thought there might be some issues with computer systems at stores for a few days.
Anyone know of any documentaries on the fix? That would be kinda neat.
Oh, there was also a King of the Hill episode on this where Hank buys a bunch of toilet paper. 🙂
Not any more than usual. I did start keeping extra cash in the house the closer it got to the end of the year. Having a boyfriend who is a programmer helped keep me calm. He told me most of the IT professionals had been working on solutions for at least 5 years, so the transitions should be fine for the most part.
It was, just a few glitches here and there from a few non-critical programs that no one had thought to check on.
No. I considered buying a generator but I knew about all the work that was going into preventing the problem. IMO it has to be one of the greatest success stories ever about preventing a potential catastrophe.
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Nope. Just stayed home that night and watched it on TV.
No.
The ‘only’ thing I did was get maybe $200 in cash just in case card readers crashed, and paid off my mortgage (which I did in June of 1999) just in case the bank (which was the B of Fucking A) ‘lost’ all my early payments. If I had had a decent and reputable bank, I wouldn’t have been in such a hurry.
yes and I still eat tuna from that stash
No, as honestly I knew it was over blown. I was in the software industry at the time and I knew countless developers that we had put in years of work to make sure that systems did not go offline when the date changed. Of course we always knew there were going to be edge cases such as some of the banking systems, etc. but the grids, etc. were extremely tested as well as avionics etc. Honestly I am just glad it didnt’ happen but of course it gave the whole it was over blown community something to gnaw on without seeing what happened behind the scenes.
Stock up on? Prepare ? 😄 No I just partied! Had the tv to watch airplanes fall from sky and anarchy in major cities that was coming.
No, although I probably would have bought some extra food if I hadn’t been dead broke. I had to work extra hours for New Year’s Eve though because my job was worried something would happen and they would need extra coverage. So that was nice for my wallet.
Just some cash. We typically didn’t keep a lot on us. I think we took out about 200$, which was a lot for us at the time. What still cracks me up today is that they recommended that you get an extra month or two of your medications! Like, how? No pharmacy would do that, and no health insurance would pay for that!
Yes. With 3 kids and an unemployed brother in law sleeping on the couch I did stock up on toilet paper and laundry detergent. For some reason I never seemed to have enough TP and was always washing dozens of towels.
I was rebooting servers after midnight and getting paid well. Some programmers bought 50 lbs bags of rice.
No
Not really. Just withdrew some extra cash in case there were any problems getting access to ATM.
But I did work for a computer retailer, so the months leading up to the new year I did put up a lot of signage and stickers on products.
“Remember to turn off you computer on 12/31/99”
Just some Belgian Lambic Beer, my choice of beverage for that evening.
I have work buddies that prepared for it. They had entire basements or stalls in their barns filled with barrels of water! I thought that was so bizarre because if the computer programs had not been fixed in time, someone would be there on hand to manually keep the water system going, they’d already announced that in the local paper! Yikes. I don’t know what sort of news they were listening to at the time, but it seemed to be a panic inducing type.
Generators, when I lived in Colorado all the big businesses, big city’s had generators in the alleys, nothing happened, life went on as normal.
I really didn’t think there would be any problems, but I did fill up both cars with gas, just in case the pumps didn’t work. I already had enough cash for emergencies, otherwise I would have probably taken a few hundred dollars out of the bank too.
My grandmother did. I didn’t.
A few basics with long shelf lives. I was worried but not frantic. I grew up with little and knew I could survive until things got back to normal.
I was a typical broke college student in 1999. I couldn’t afford to hoard anything even if I wanted to. Figured I’d just join a roving apocalypse gang if everything fell apart.
I bought a box of shotgun shells, just in case.
No; I knew it was overblown just by analyzing the news coverage.
Not a thing. I think the world was worried about computer glitches but once companies recognized it, they worked on fixing their codes. Not sure what hoarding would have done for anyone.
I smoked a joint and watched Strange Days that night.
I had to work that New Year’s Eve night. The owner of the dive bar I worked at suggested that we bring an “extra” gun with us that night. (Having guns at work was normal as at least SOME of the staff was armed at all times anyway). I brought an AK-47 in a guitar case with me that night. Other employees brought shotguns, etc. Didn’t need it, everything went smoothly (at least as smoothly as normal). That’s my crazy Y2K thing that I did. 🙂
My dad bought four garbage cans and filled them with water from the hose.
After the new year he dumped the water and we had new garbage cans for, you know garbage.
Had a buddy that was a big “2A gun guy” and really went down the Y2K rabbit hole. He listened to a LOT of Rush and Neil Boortz, plus G. Gordon Liddy on the radio. He started hoarding MREs, had a few 55 gallon drums filled with water, generators, extra ammo, etc. I kind of chuffed when I saw it all in his outbuilding and he got annoyed and said something along the lines of “I’m not gonna be watching TV on new year’s eve and be surprised when the power goes down.” I told him the eastern United States is in the 18th time zone, and if something DOES happen, you definitely won’t be surprised like that. I also had a great deal of confidence that anything that happened would be minor. And I also reminded him to go watch the Twilight Zone episode “The Shelter.” It was just him, his sweet wife and their little girl. At some point, friends or not, the neighborhood will be coming for that food and water in a total collapse.
No, but
My former brother in law took the day off work. He knew it was going to be horrible. I kept trying to tell him the worst thing that would happen is maybe some billing mistakes. Airplanes are going to fall out of the sky. Cars wouldn’t start. The power grid was going to fail, and we’d be cold since it was the middle of winter.
My daughter and I walked to their house wrapped up in blankets. We knocked on their door and asked if everyone was ok. He opened the door, gave me a dirty look, and went back to watching TV.
We were just checking to make sure they were OK. He never understood my sense of humor.
No, but I remember the local TV news interviewed this couple who had their basement packed with stuff, including barrels of water. This was so dumb in the sense those folks were “outed” or “doxxed” on local TV so that IF there had been a crisis, all their neighbors would now know where to go and raid for supplies!!
N̈ope.
No but my work did. I worked in LTC and they stocked us with bottled water 🤷♀️
No. It’s just not in my nature to be alarmist but the controller at the company I worked for was freaked
No, as I said in the chat room when some paranoid brought it up “I’m going to loot and pillage with the rest of them.”
NEVER forget these valiant heroes who saved us all!
https://imgur.com/a/FGp30xi
I had no money. I didn’t worry because I had nothing to lose.
No. I worked in banking where potential impacts were the most concerning. However, the industry worked to fix the issues. Tbf a few things went south but they were really minor like firmware on credit card machines etc.
The reason it was nothing is because we worked to fix it
Yes. I stocked up on paper products. Finished the last of the toilet paper some time in 2002.
It was New Years Eve.
We had a big party planned, so I laid in a lot of food but not much more than I expected folks to eat. If the world had collapsed in the NE US we would have had many hours to know we needed to cancel the party.
Did check that we had batteries and plenty of firewood.
A friend of mine made a killing buying generators in Jan 2000 and reselling them when an ice storm hit in March.
About $100 in cash, some toilet paper and some canned food, nothing much. I do the same when bad winter storms are predicted
We had a little extra food/cash just in case (me – husband was unconcerned.)
The hospital where I worked was trying to get the nursing students and younger nurses on the night shift that night as we were the only ones who would still know how to manually calculate IV drip rates in case all the IV poles crapped out at the same time (they didn’t.) They also anticipated an uptick in mental health visits (there were.)
I did make sure all my favorite spice jars were full and that I had plenty of coffee.
Nope, not at all. There was a bit of apprehension, as in when the clock hit midnight we didn’t go “Yaaay!” We kinda sat quietly for a minute to see if planes start falling out of the sky. But the TV stayed on, the microwaves still worked, Aussies where in 2000 for almost a day now and seemed fine.
I’d say, and maybe this is nostalgia talking, that the ’90s and very, very early ’00s were a very positive time. We had hope in the bright future. Yes Y2K was a thing, but a lot of people came out of retirement and retooled and fixed a lot of stuff to make sure it works. And there’s been recent history of global cooperation on such issues, like that time we got rid of the chemicals that was destroying the ozone layer. That was neat. So there was hope that Y2K wouldn’t be a serious issue.
Nope. We didn’t do anything to guard against the breakdown of society that all the chicken littles were predicting. My FIL booked a table at a really nice restaurant downtown and we partied. The only downer was that it absolutely pissed down rain and we were on the patio. The owner moved us inside and gave us a complimentary bottle of champagne. ‘It rained quite hard’ was my take away from that NY.
We got extra cash. We also bought candles. That is how prepared we were.
I just did my grocery shopping NYE after work, but that’s because my regular grocery day would have fallen on January 1, and I didn’t want to have to go out on a day off for groceries.
So it had the effect of stocking up on food, but it was really just avoiding an extra errand.
Yes – bottled water. I figured that supply chains could be maintained manually no matter what but embedded controllers might not. I couldn’t do anything about electricity but water was more essential and easy to provide for.
Nope. We just did what we normally do.
I bought a gallon of water…
No. It was pretty clearly hype. I worked in a bookstore, and sending back books predicting apocalypses, financial crashes and other calamities was a regular occurrence. (I ended up having to set up the discount rack for our stock of Y2K books when nothing at all happened.)
It was my senior head of HS so all I cared about was going out with my friends but my friend’s mom filled up the bath tubs for extra water and stocked food. She also bought a gun I guess in case somebody came after her bath tubs water.
We bought some extra canned food that would have lasted us a couple weeks. That was about it. At most I thought there might be some issues with computer systems at stores for a few days.
Anyone know of any documentaries on the fix? That would be kinda neat.
Oh, there was also a King of the Hill episode on this where Hank buys a bunch of toilet paper. 🙂
Not any more than usual. I did start keeping extra cash in the house the closer it got to the end of the year. Having a boyfriend who is a programmer helped keep me calm. He told me most of the IT professionals had been working on solutions for at least 5 years, so the transitions should be fine for the most part.
It was, just a few glitches here and there from a few non-critical programs that no one had thought to check on.
No. I considered buying a generator but I knew about all the work that was going into preventing the problem. IMO it has to be one of the greatest success stories ever about preventing a potential catastrophe.