Our group secretary is not happy....her husband's employer, a smaller machine shop in Rockford, IL, did not issue any paychecks last Friday due to a computer crash of the payroll system. Their system was not remediated for Y2K, and there is no contingency plan in place to issue checks or cash to the employees...the company is not promising pay any time soon. To make matters worse, the computer system deleted all the employees' W2 financial records, so the company is not able to issue W2 forms this year. One final problem: her husband just threw away all of his paycheck stubs for 1999 !! HAPPY YEAR 2000 !!

-- BrianL (bliebenstein@camcar.textron.com), January 12, 2000

Answers

BrianL,

Thanks for the post. Unfortunately for all of us, I think we'll be seeing an increasing amount of incidents like this over the next few months as businesses begin running their weekly/monthly/quarterly processes. A good portion of the the SME's of the world either didn't believe Y2K was ever real, or adopted the FOF mentality. The big problem is that if the "fixers" can't get paid, they will stop fixing! The S may indeed be getting ready to HTF.

Jimmy

-- Jimmy Splinters (inthe@dark.com), January 12, 2000.

Oh man!!!!!!! Hope they get is resolved QUICKLY! The companies who did not remediate their systems have done a disservice to the employees who work hard for them. Thanks for the post, please let us know what happens. :-{

-- Dee (T1Colt556@aol.com), January 12, 2000.

This type of thing is happening all over the country. Millions of people aren't getting paid. This is a nightmare!!!

-- (richardM@felten.org), January 12, 2000.

richardM,

More details please. Perhaps a URL or a reference with specifics.

Not a flame just would like to see supporting info for your statement.

-- Bill P (porterwn@one.net), January 12, 2000.

richardM,

Do you have hard evidence of this or are you guesstimating? This is the only such instance I've heard of.

Jimmy

-- Jimmy Splinters (inthe@dark.com), January 12, 2000.

Pretty idiotic not to remediate. Very bad decision.

Millions not getting paid??????? I kind of doubt that. There are some folks having to wait for their paychecks but I doubt very seriously they number in the millions.

Deano

-- Deano (deano@luvthebeach.com), January 12, 2000.

Is there a cause of legal action against companies that did no remediation?

-- (RUOK@yesiam.com), January 12, 2000.

Doubleday books here in PA is having similar payroll problems.they hope to have it fixed by Feb.

-- eric micael....allen (bizerr4@hotmail.com), January 12, 2000.

The City of Albuquerque (approximately 6000 employees) is also having big problems. Checks issued on January 7 were those that were printed as a contingency plan, before the rollover, in case the payroll system had Y2K problems after the 1st, which it did. One of my co-workers was deleted from the system entirely and finally got paid several days after the 7th payday.

They are working with the vendor, but apparently it is still a mess. We shall see what happens on payday the 21st.

-- RB Zaxus (goldcactus@newmexico.com), January 12, 2000.

Oooops.

Does "Gee, we're sorry about that." cover this kind of problem?

Will the press report it?

Or only report it if it's their paycheck?

-- Robert A Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), January 12, 2000.

There are very large IRS penalties for missing or delaying W2 reports - and for missing/delaying interim monthly payments to the IRS from withholding......

Wonder if the IRS will be patient also?

-- Robert A Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), January 12, 2000.

Since tomorrow (Thursday) is the first payday of the new year for those folks who are paid every two weeks, we just might see a large crop of similar reports. And an increase in the number of folks who finally get it that the Y2K bug can have a personal relationship with them.

WW

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), January 12, 2000.

FOF = TSHTF

Of course, if you're a polly this was caused by a car hitting a power pole down the road.

Iran or Iraq? was supposed to be FOF but our information resources are extremely limited, that is, non-existent. Not enough Akmeds on line; correction, make that NO Akmeds on-line.

-- Guy Daley (guydaley@bwn.net), January 12, 2000.

There will be real problems. There will be those who were going belly up anyway and decide that y2k is a good cover... How will we know?

-- Michael Erskine (Osiris@urbanna.net), January 12, 2000.

Similar happenings here with payroll, due to Netware 3.11 not being Y2K proofed. Has anyone got a remedy for netware 3.11.

-- Gordon Peacok (peacock@purplenet.co.uk), January 18, 2000.