Let Computer Chips Fall Where They May

Another New Year’s celebration is over and now we’re closing in on the big one. Up next, the year 2000.

Y2K.

Aaack!! Let the panic begin!!

Please, do not get mad. I understand the problems that could arise from computers that have not been appropriately tweaked. By the same token, when I think about those things that could fail us, I am unable to marshal more than mild concern.

Why!? Everyone knows that the whole world is going to come to a halt!! That our lights will go off, our furnaces will stop, that the grocery shelves will be empty and gas station tanks will be dry!!

No, I do not think so. The reason? Because of what everything eventually comes down to: Money.

I watch Scott, manager of the Millwood Albertson’s, walk the aisles of his store, making sure all the cans face front, the floors are clean and the produce fresh.

He cannot afford to have his store close, for then he would be out of work and could not take care of his family.

I bet he has made sure that the Albertson’s home office in Boise has exterminated any Y2K bugs, and that they have contacted their suppliers, too. Nobody wants Albertson’s stores to run out of food.

All sorts of businesses are going to make sure that they will stay open, that they will not lose a single customer because of a Y2K failure.

With this in mind, I visit one of the Valley’s water and power companies. There, I find employees who want to keep their customers happy - and who also want their own lights to stay on.

“We are ready for Y2K,” said Bob, computer programmer at Modern Electric Co.

“If we should lose power if would be for a matter of hours, not days, and we have generators to run the water pumps. We worry more about a drunk taking out a pole and transformer than about Y2K.”

Ice Storm!! Remember the havoc during Ice Storm?!

Yes, November 96’s ice storm was a mess. It struck without warning, though. Had we known it was coming, we would have been ready.

We have the time to prepare for Y2K.

We won’t get our paychecks if our employers don’t address the Y2K bug!!

I am not worried. My employer gets his paycheck out of the same computer that I do. He needs to get paid, too.

So why the panic? Even if there is just one person in charge of the whole country, he or she still needs lights, water, food, gasoline. He or she will make sure they can get those things.

That’s crazy!! Don’t trust faceless “theys” to make sure our very lives will go on!!

I do worry that “they” will not get it all done perfectly and I am not entirely trusting them to do so. My family has discussed what might happen and to what degree we should be ready for 2000.

My parents survived the Depression. I learned early about keeping the cupboards full of food staples. We could go weeks without a grocery store visit. Our meals would be boring, but we would not starve.

Do not even say the words “toilet paper.” Plenty is barely an adequate word to describe the supply I keep on hand.

What we are not doing, though, is stockpiling food or water, or buying a generator. We do not have the extra funds to do this, even if we thought we needed to.

But what about all those little household things that contain computer chips?! They will all fail!!

If that happens, it happens. I do not think my survival will depend on being able to program the VCR to tape the X-Files.

The cable box will work fine. I know TCI does not want to lose customers due to loss of service any more than a grocer would.

Besides that, my can opener is one of the hand crank types, the coffee pot a 1950s vintage style, and the alarm clock cares only what time I need to get up, not what year.

If all do their jobs like I imagine they have the sense to do, then you and I and the rest of the folks in the Valley will survive Y2K unscathed.