Y2K bug ruins vacations for some

Web posted July 18, 1999

By Stacy Wong
The Hartford Courant

Companies across the United States are banning employees from taking vacations from November through February to be sure there is a smooth transition to 2000.

Although information technology employees have long figured they will work just before and after New Year's, a host of other professionals

will be working, too. The restrictions show the computer problem known as Y2K affects a wide sector of the working world and not just technical personnel.

``We're all on the same team,'' said Bill McGurk, president of The Savings Bank of Rockville, based in Vernon, Conn. He has included himself and the bank's vice president in the vacation ban.

Banks, utilities, manufacturers, governmental departments, emergency response agencies and computer consulting firms are asking employees to take vacations before fall 1999 or after February 2000.

Most want to be sure operations are not adversely affected by the millennium bug, the programming shortcut adopted long ago using two digits to denote the date.

That may result in some computers not properly recognizing ``00'' as 2000, leading to shutdowns or inaccurate computer calculations.

Employers who are not outright banning vacations during that time still want their critical employees to be on tap. At Fleet Bank, spokesman Jim Schepker called Fleet's vacation restriction an ``availability policy.''

The policy means about 5,000 selected Fleet employees companywide can take vacations, but they must be on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and can't venture farther than three hours from their work sites.

Schepker said Fleet had a similar restriction in place last year, in a much less publicized date change to the year 1999. The company was on watch to be sure its computer systems could handle the year ``99'' because in some programs ``99'' means ``the end.''

Vacations also depend on expertise -- if an employee is the only one with knowledge of a critical technical area or an important customer account, that employee is more likely to be subject to restrictions.

Employers are allowing exceptions for employees who may have made, say, wedding and honeymoon plans before the restrictions went into place, or for those who need to use vacation time to visit ill relatives.

But for all the vacation bans, travel agents are not seeing much difference in vacation patterns. Most employees simply took vacations earlier in the year.

Kenneth Sause of Travel Works in Wallingford, Conn, said vacation bans have not been much of an issue when it comes to traveling around the new year. Most people who aren't traveling at that time simply refuse to pay the inflated rates this year, he said.

``They're just stunned by the prices,'' Sause said.