There were actually only 12 or 14 of us who had to be on duty on New Year's Eve, but the management of RAND's Computer Services Department threw a party for any of the staff and their families who wanted to attend. The on duty folks were also put up at a local hotel (since I wound up working until nearly 0400, this was a Good Thing).

I had brought the "Y2K HAZARD" tape back from my trip to LISA '99 in Seattle, because I absolutely had to go to the Archie McPhee store while I was there. But aside from having draped my supervisor's PC with some of it, I hadn't been able to think of any good pranks, and in a few hours the stuff would be useless. At 2045 the perfect use dawned on me, and I dragged the rest of the sysadmins (save for our supervisor, who declined - we got him later) downstairs to our offices. The time is important because we were going to count down to midnight with the CSD staff in our Washington, D.C. office, and so the goal was to race downstairs, drape ourselves, and race back to the party before 0000 EST/2100 PST. We even almost made it ;)

Yours truly, Head Instigator, er Sysadmin, in her office.

Dressing for the occasion

Someone has pictures of our entrance. I just haven't found them yet.

We'll turn you into a sysadmin yet!

Now doesn't that feel better?

No- that was all drunk by the rest of the table! Honest!

After all, the most dangerous Y2K hazard is a sysadmin.

One last shot before we get down to work.

At a party the night of Jan. 1. Champagne courtesy of The RAND Corp.

Last modified by Lee Ann Goldstein on 20