Cory Hamasaki's DC Y2K Weather Report V2, # 14
"April 1, 1998 - 639 days to go." WRP70
FINAL
(c) 1997, 1998 Cory Hamasaki - I grant permission to distribute and
reproduce this newsletter as long as this entire document is reproduced in
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As seen in
USENET:comp.software.year-2000
http://www.elmbronze.demon.co.uk/year2000/
http://www.kiyoinc.com/HHResCo.html
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Please fax or email copies of this to your geek pals, especially those
idiots who keep sending you lightbulb, blonde, or Bill Gates jokes,
and urban legends like the Arizona rocket car story.
If you have a Y2K webpage, feel free to host the Weather Reports.
Don't forget- April 2, 3 1998, Geek Out.
Project Dumbass needs you.
In this issue:
1. Geek Out.
2. Money Rates
3. DC Wackiness
4. CCCC
-------------- Geek Out -----------------
April 2, 3. Let's turn out the lights in cube city, empty the slave quarters.
...but this is not a strike, this is your time to clean up the basement, visit
with geek-pals, take in a movie at the mall, breath the fresh clean air of
freedom, see the sun for one last time before rejoining the deathmarch.
Take the kids to the mall, drag out the old bicycle, or just toss some
anti-biotic and hormone pumped up burgers on the grill, a cooler of homebrew
at your side, donnasummers thumping it out on the boombox and annoying the
neighbors, gonna.have.some.hotstuff.baby.tonight... thumpa-thumpa.
whoo-weee, skinny-minnie, does life get any better than this? <----<<< this is
a high class literary reference but I've forgotten... the senior moments are
blending.>
I have two hot dates for Geek-Out. I'll be lunching with a Geek-pal on
Thursday and getting the mother of physicals on Friday. At 11:00 EST, geeks
everywhere, cringe in sympathy for me; if you've got a drink, hoist it high
and shout out, Ow-Doc! Take it easy will you.
One item I plan to discuss at my physical are innoculations. How many of you
know when your last tetanus shot was and how long it protects you?
-------------- Money, Rates ---------------
Now that Senator Bob Bennet and Arthur Levitt have ordered corporations to
disclose their Y2K budgets in their SEC filings, the last piece of the puzzle
has fallen into place.
As our pal Vik has said, the demand for geeks hasn't started yet. The most
telling factor is that report that GM's 1997 Y2K budget was 40 million dollars
and their 1998 budget is 500 million dollars. Similarly, Chase just
increased their budget by 50 million. This is on top of their previous 250
million dollars.
Please be patient... These 1998 budgets have to fan down through the
organizations, PS6, Peoplesoft, projects, HR, ads have to be written,
contracts with recruiters and advertisers approved, days, weeks, months, hey
wait a minute, we have 639 days and you idiots are holding meetings about
staffing plans????? The nice looking (but not too bright) HR people are at
lunch, what the h*lls going on.
Senior Management, make it very clear, in very simple terms that the projects
must be staffed by day 600 or all of HR is terminated immediately and you have
to say that to them every day or it's not going to happen.
Middle technical management, keep on both your management and HR or day 600
will come and go and you will be the next target. Make no mistake about it,
companies like EDS, IGS, Perot, Andy, will be happy to outsource all the work
and while you might have a job with them, don't count on it. In either case,
you could lose your cushy management job and end up turning the crank on a
third shift COBOL copybook fixup project for the next 3 years.
Geeks, code-grunts, by the end of spring, you will be in a deathmarch. You
need to keep your sense of humor, take a full 45 minutes for lunch but don't
eat at your desk. Grab something and go outside and sit on the lawn; walk for
10 minutes, even if it's just to the parking lot or down to the 7-11. Swing
your arms, breath the fresh air, stand tall.
All the money in the world is not going to restore your health. There is a
good chance that your project, company, will fail. Do the best job you
possibly can but don't get twisted around the axle and don't sacrifice youself
for their mistakes. Watch out, don't develop a monitor-tan.
If they had listened to me a year ago, you and they would not be in this mess.
They didn't, it's their loss, not mine or yours. Imagine, they could have had
top talent for $80-90/hour a year ago. Today, they won't be able to find an
internals specialist at any price. Think I'm kidding?
You can't make an internals specialist, a systems designer, or even a skillful
COBOL code-grunt in 630 days. It's not possible. The people who have depth
of experience, expertise, and an architect's view have always been very rare,
Even skillful COBOL code-grunts are not a dime a dozen.
Yes, the corporate world treated them as such since 1985 but we now have
639 days to complete about 15 years of deferred maintenance. We need about 10
times the personnel than are available.
Historicly, an average-good salary is 60K, there's 15 years of work per
person, about two years to do it in. 15/2 = 7.5. 60K * 7.5 = 450K. 3000
deathmarch hours in a year. 450K/3000 = $150/hour.
I make the right number for a skillful COBOL code-grunt as $150/hour.
That's 1099 or corp. There are lots of factors that will index this number
up and down.
Are we seeing those numbers? Not yet, best I can tell, the right nunber for a
COBOL code-grunt is somewhere about $65-70/hour, a little higher for an
assembler gear-head but not much over $100/hour.
For example, if all COBOL programmers agree to work only 2000 hours in a year,
the rate goes up, $450/2000 = $225/hour. The work still needs to be done but
there will be fewer person hours to throw against it.
Some companies will pompously declare, we will not be blackmailed. Noooo,
you're saying that you don't want to pay the fair market value and you prefer
to go out of business.
This is not about what you THINK you want to pay. This is about work that
must be done and not enough people to do it. It's strictly numbers, it's not
personal. The market doesn't care what you earned last year or that you
are an important person with a corner, window office. The only thing that
matters is that the software is fixed... and that has a cost.
-- from c.s.y2k, barb --
>> Subject - Lump-Sum Payment to Exempt Employees
>> Outstanding 4 percent of base salary as of 4/1/98
> Of course, a couple other divisions hadn't done as well so....our bonus this
> year works out to (on average) 2% (of annual salary).
It's not business as usual. This is an event that has never happened before.
I recommend an immediate 30% bonus paid monthly. That sends the right message
to the geeks. The number must be calculated locally and I am willing to work
with HR and senior management to establish a raid-proof compensation package.
Raid-proofing has to be in place before the raids begin. It will cost more if
you wait.
------------ DC wackiness --------
The DC police department is fighting with the mayor. Seems he likes to stop
off at various places during the day and he makes his security detail wait
outside while he meets with supporters, holds impromptu meetings on various
official matters. The police department and media are suggesting that the
mayor is dropping his pants and/or has fallen off the wagon. Their clue? They
knocked on the door to see if he was OK; he came to the door in his
underwear...
Last week there were 3 murders in DC, so what you say; these were unrelated
but happened within a 15 minute time span.
I noticed that some of the street lights that I've been reporting as out are
actually poles where the arm and light fixture have fallen off, were knocked
off, or were stolen.
Send help, DC is getting worse.
------------ CCCC ----------------
I'm glad to see a few April 1st articles show up. I'm not writing one
because, well, around here, every day is April Fools day. I always wear a
jester's cap.
Surviving - Several people have mentioned storing water. Is this necessary?
The farm has a spring and my Maryland retreat is a block from the river. I
have 15 two liter soda jugs under my desk at one client's office. I'm
recycling but just haven't flattened and taken them home yet. Should I keep
them for Y2K survival??????
I'm very wary of the survivalist nut-cases and gun-lovers. They have this
great love of stuff, fancy, expensive stuff, knick-knacks, gee-gaws, stuff. I
was talking to some pals and they went on about camping gear, propane stoves,
gadgets and widgets, tents, etc.
We're talking extended survival. My plan for the long haul scenario is
renewable and sustainable at little cost. There's a passage in Brim's 'The
Postman' that talks about survivalists retreats being the targets of looters.
We have the advantage in the U.S. that the wilderness is benign and bountiful,
that the climate is mild, and that the country is underpopulated. Sure people
in cities could have it hard but it doesn't have to be that way.
Sustainable, not a big fancy Yuppie backpack, a bindle, what you need to live
off the land, minimal needs. It's all right to get a little hungry, to be
cold, to have a few aches and pains from sleeping on the ground.
In addition to my software remediation projects, I'd like to share and discuss
my personal measures... if people are interested. Please let me know if you
are, otherwise I won't waste the bandwidth.
My assessment, and it's offered up for edutainment only, is that it's worth
spending a few dollars on the end of civilization scenario. We're in for some
rough times but I'm betting against a second U.S. Civil War. I am covering
that bet to the tune of $1,000 over the next 18 months; that's about $50/month
or $1.5/day. That pays for some extra rice and beans, a small solar array to
run the Ham gear for 30 minutes/day. One month, I'll pitch in some diesel
for my pal, when he installs the second tank, it's an old home heating oil
tank that he had in the back yard.
cory hamasaki 639 Days, 15,351 hours.