The Y2K bug found its way into water bills
delivered Thursday to about 3,600 customers
in West Des Moines. The bills say there will
be an extra charge for payments made after
Jan. 3, 1900.

. . .

the city is mailing new statements at the
expense of a computer consultant hired to
help with Y2K preparations.

The computer consultant is the upcoming
whipping boy.

Register Guard

-- spider (spider0@usa.net), December 20, 1999

Answers

Probably so, but always be careful to differentiate between "cosmetic" and "critical" differences.

If your water bill has read "19.95", "19.98", "19.26", and "19.37" for "10/1999", "11/1999", "12/1999", and "01/1900" -- odds are, it's cosmetic.

OTOH, if that same bill has read "19.95", "19.98", "19.26", and "1937.00" -- there's every possibility there's a problem.

-- I'm Here, I'm There (I'm Everywhere@so.beware), December 21, 1999.

Typical problem....question will be - when payments are made in January, what will be printed?

Correctly appropriated money paid at the right time? Correct money, right date paid, wrong date due, wrong date overdue, wrong penalty, no penalties (when actually required?), ALL penalties to EVERYBODY, all stop service claims sent to customer service - sure to clog up lines and operations in Januey, ...... correct money billed - but to the right/wrong/"almost correct" account?

All are potential failures. ALL have happened after various y2k-remediated systems have been "fixed".

Life-threatening? No. But typical of the problems expected.

-- Robert A Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), December 27, 1999.