Reply to: 20 years ago - what were you doing?

[Zigenare]

In a village hall? That would be unusual.

Just thought I'd ask.

[NotAllThere]

What? No hospital beds available?

In a village hall? That would be unusual.

[Zigenare]

After reading a theregistor.co.uk article, I just wonder what the denizens were up to 20 years ago this day.

I was working on a SAP project for a government department. Low hours, high pay and a licensed bar in the basement. But NYE, my family and I went to a village party. I remember most people brought their kids, so there were chairs pushed together from about 10pm onwards, so the little darlings could sleep. My little darlings were tough enough to curl up on coats on the floor.

What? No hospital beds available?

I was contracting in Germany but spent NYE - after an interesting drive through snow from Ulm - at a rather nice hostelry owned by friends in Roquefort Les Pins.

My Y2K stuff was done, tested and verified well before 1999, why wasn't everyone elses?

[Lockhouse]

That was a bit short; what went wrong?

I remained there some time, was on the floor September 2001 - watched the second plane hit on live TV monitors. Terrible times as the dot-com bubble burst.

Got better offer. Went to HSBC IB and like you saw the second plane hit live. I did go back to CS for a bit recently.

[TwoWolves]

We would have been at CSFB at the same time. I was there from Jul 1999 to Oct 2000. Equities. It was the tail end of the Wild West years. Attitudes were changing pretty quickly around that time.

That was a bit short; what went wrong?

I remained there some time, was on the floor September 2001 - watched the second plane hit on live TV monitors. Terrible times as the dot-com bubble burst.

[ladymuck]

You may not be unsurprised to know I did do a stint behind the bar of a night club for a short while in the early 2000's. Far too much like hard work all for a measly £25 a night, taxed at emergency rate.

[psychocandy]

6 months into my first ever contract. SAP/Unix support at HP in Bristol.

£35 an hour if I remember correctly. Those were the days - hourly rates.

[WTFH]

I was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar...

[Lockhouse]

I had just started a gig working on the trading floor at Credit Suisse.

There was a big hole in the department following a slew of sackings as blowback to the "flaming Ferraris" insider-trading scandal.

How 'Flaming Ferraris' burned their bridges | Business | The Guardian

So I got a pile of source code, a production system to manage and no handover!

We would have been at CSFB at the same time. I was there from Jul 1999 to Oct 2000. Equities. It was the tail end of the Wild West years. Attitudes were changing pretty quickly around that time.

[JohntheBike]

I had just started a gig working on the trading floor at Credit Suisse.

There was a big hole in the department following a slew of sackings as blowback to the "flaming Ferraris" insider-trading scandal.

How 'Flaming Ferraris' burned their bridges | Business | The Guardian

So I got a pile of source code, a production system to manage and no handover!

So I got a pile of source code, a production system to manage and no handover!

par for the course then! and future instructions on the bag of a fag packet no doubt!

[TwoWolves]

I had just started a gig working on the trading floor at Credit Suisse.

There was a big hole in the department following a slew of sackings as blowback to the "flaming Ferraris" insider-trading scandal.

How 'Flaming Ferraris' burned their bridges | Business | The Guardian

So I got a pile of source code, a production system to manage and no handover!

[JohntheBike]

getting 1000 gbp per day to monitor some mainframes, just in case

getting £250 ph to monitor some HP3000 midrange machines - just in case.

[original PM]

I was working in recruitment at the time.

Had to go in and check the photocopier and fax machine still worked.

[emoji849]

[DoctorStrangelove]

Like NF I'd just finished a 12 month contract in Cheltenham working on burglar alarms and some sort of ATE tester thingie, all of which was embedded, some of it bare metal just to make it that little bit more tedious.

I was on my way towards a 7 month or so contract in Rugby bare metal coding for a thing that ended up being sold in Argos for £79.99, reduced to £39.99 when it turned out the basic concept was a pile of ordure.

The other pile of ordure from the same source was a battery operated portable fridge for drugs & such like that would have required a forklift for the batteries once I'd done the maths on the amount of power required and the U value of any likely insulation.

Peltier coolers are not the most efficient of devices.

[NickFitz]

I’d just finished a gig in Cheltenham involving cutting edge stuff like JavaScript and XML

New Year itself was spent in a pub that’s long since been demolished, like all the best pubs in this benighted city that thinks digging up kings who were peacefully resting under car parks is all the heritage it needs