re: Yourdon's move -- this comes up from time to time, so I'll just repost this early post from another thread. I wanted to know, so I wrote and asked him.
To: Bill Wexler (717 )
From: jwk Wednesday, May 20 1998 10:38AM ET
Reply # of 826
Ed Yourdon's email to me re: New Mexico -- hey, it's the internet, while you guys were yacking away I thought I'd just look him up and ask him myself. Nice of him to reply.
Subject:
Re: question
Date:
Tue, 19 May 1998 16:46:28 -0700
From:
Ed Yourdon
To:
jknutson@educator.mci.net
>Mr. Yourdon,
>
>Could you please give the definitive answer to this arguement which has
>been going on on a y2k thread on the Silicon Investor? Did you move to
>New Mexico because you felt NYC will be difficult to live in as a result
>of y2k problems?
>
>Thank you,
>Jack Knutson
---------------------
Jack,
Thanks for your mail. The material, which I published with the Cutter Consortium's Y2K Advisory service last week, provides
an answer to your question in a reasonable amount of detail.
Ed
--------------------
May 4: THE SAFE-HAVEN DEBATE
The Y2K "safe haven" debate has begun to intensify, and it's something you should think about, so that you can decide how
to respond if you get dragged into it. "Wired" magazine is working on a safe-haven article for their August issue, and articles
are also being planned by TechWeek, Forbes, and a couple of TV reports. In case you haven't heard about the debate, it's
simple and stark: is it advisable, and is it ethical, for people involved in a Y2K project to make plans to quit their jobs, leave
town, and escape to -- quite literally -- a "safe haven" until the Y2K storm blows over?
I've been interviewed about this issue by several journalists in the past few weeks, and it hasn't been easy to determine whether
the reporters were looking for "sensationalist" material or a balanced coverage of the issue; some of them argue that it might
make the general public pay more attention to the Y2K problem if they knew that programmers were sufficiently concerned
that they planned to head for the hills. To compound the problem, there's always the danger that whatever you say to the
media will get boiled down to a single, out-of-context sound-bite; this has happened to me several times already. In any case,
I've done a lot of thinking about the safe-haven topic, and will do my best to articulate them here; since essays like this have a
way of bouncing around the Internet fairly rapidly, I hope it will provoke some thoughtful discussion and debate, so that we
can all sort out our feelings on the subject.
Rather than discussing this in a completely removed, detached manner, let me summarize my own situation. My wife and I are
selling our New York City apartment and buying a house in a small town in New Mexico; but I'm not abandoning the Cutter
Consortium (which is based in the Boston area), and I would have been moving out of New York City even if Y2K hadn't
come along. My youngest child is about to graduate from high school and head off to college; consequently, my wife and I
have been anticipating and planning the "empty nest" phase of our lives for the past several years. We had intended to rent or
buy a much smaller apartment in New York City, and to rent or buy a small country house in northern Montana, where we've
spent several pleasant summers. But my deep concern about Y2K has led to some modifications in the original plan; the most
significant modification is that we've decided to purchase a house in New Mexico, rather than Montana, because (among other
things) it will be much more tolerable in the winter if there are disruptions in electrical power. There are many other details,
but the main thing is that Y2K has not caused a panic-stricken reaction, but has simply been one more event -- albeit a
potentially *major* event -- to be factored into the lifestyle plans we've been making for the past several years.
But let's not beat around the bush: even though the move to New Mexico is part of a larger, long-anticipated transition in my
life, it doesn't eliminate the black-and-white reality that I would not allow my family to be in New York City for Millennium
Weekend. I've often joked that I expect New York to resemble Beirut if even a subset of the Y2K infrastructure problems
actually materialize -- but it's really not a joke. It's likely to be fairly cold on New Year's weekend, and a combination of
disruptions in utilities, telecommunications, banking, schools, hospitals, airports, unemployment checks, Social Security
checks, food stamps, and welfare checks would be enough to make the citizens of New York (who normally only have to
tolerate problems like subway strikes and embarrassingly incompetent baseball teams) extraordinarily grumpy. There's
enough gunfire in the streets even in normal times, and I'm not comfortable exposing my family to the city's ill humor if Y2K
turns out to be a serious problem. When I first started thinking about Y2K a few years ago, I told my family that we'd spend a
two-week Christmas vacation in Florida or in the Caribbean; I think they would still prefer such a choice, but now I'm
concerned that (a) hotels and resorts will have their own Y2K problem, and (b) the Y2K disruptions could last longer than two
weeks. So we're going to New Mexico instead, and we'll be staying in a house that will be equipped for longer-term
disruptions, if that turns out to be necessary. My kids still assume that they'll be able to return to college and/or jobs in New
York in early January 2000, and I haven't bothered reminding them that if the FAA doesn't finish its Y2K project in time, all
bets are off. If Y2K turns out to be a non-problem, they'll return to their normal occupations, and my wife and I will still
spend most of our time in New Mexico.
Bottom line: Y2K is sufficiently worrisome, in my opinion, that I'll make damn sure my family isn't there when the clock rolls
over to Jan 1, 2000. Does that mean I'm going to "cut and run" because of Y2K? Well, you can decide for yourself, based on
what I've told you; but it's important to emphasize that all of this is a carefully considered decision, not a panic-stricken
escape. The issue of panic is important, for a common argument against the safe-haven movement is that it could incite panic
on the part of others who might be easily swayed by noticing that Y2K project team members are behaving like rats deserting
a sinking ship. This is similar to the argument against withdrawing one's savings because of concerns about the impact of
Y2K on the banking system. And as I suggested in a column a few weeks ago, this is just a variation on the accusation that it's
equivalent to shouting "fire" in a crowded theater. To the extent that there's a public display of such behavior, perhaps the
accusation is valid. Those who decide to withdraw their money and move out of vulnerable urban centers can be forgiven,
perhaps, for trying to persuade their friends and relatives that it's a wise thing to do; but perhaps the prudent thing to do is
keep one's decision to oneself. Unfortunately, those of us who are concerned about Y2K find that we're not really taken
seriously unless we offer some evidence that we're putting our money where our mouth is -- i.e., you might have been more
inclined to ignore this entire column if I didn't reveal some of the details of my own decisions. But having done so, I'm
reaching the point where I'm on the verge of clamming up and disappearing from the radar screen of public discussion; I have
no interest in persuading others to make their decisions based on what I've done.
But there are several other aspects of the safe-haven debate, and I want to get some of them out in the open. Let's deal with a
trivial one first: some of the critics sum up their argument, as Y2K guru Bill Ulrich appears to have done in a recent
*Computerworld* column, with the phrase, "You can run, but you can't hide." I admire and respect everything that Bill has
done in the Y2K field, and I suspect that he and I would reach a consensus on this topic with a few moments of conversation
-- but I'm concerned when I hear the safe-haven argument put into such simplistic terms. Consider the situation I've described
above: I'm not heading for an isolated cabin in the Montana mountains a la Ted Kaszynski (sp?), and I'm certainly not
interested in forming an armed compound like the ill-fated group in Waco. Perhaps some Y2K programmers will make such
a choice, but for most of us, it's incredibly impractical -- regardless of what you might think about the politics of such a
choice. Though there are exceptions, most of us who work in the computer field are, as Labor Secretary Robert Reich put it,
"symbol manipulators" by profession. We're terrific with computers, but we don't know how to build anything, we don't know
how to grow crops, and we can't cope with plumbing, carpentry, or a dozen other survivalist skills. I'm not about to drag my
family to a cave in the mountains of New Mexico, because we would probably die of starvation within a few weeks. But that
doesn't mean we should feel guilty about moving from a major urban center of several million strangers who could start
shooting at one another under duress, to a small town of a few thousand who might feel somewhat more of a sense of
community. Let me put it another way: whatever Y2K skills I have to contribute can be contributed just as valuably to a small
town as to a large city. In my case, I firmly believe that my Y2K talents would be utterly ignored in a metropolis like New
York City, whereas they might be recognized, appreciated, and put to good use in a small town in New Mexico. Should I feel
guilty that New York City has been deprived of the potential benefit of my Y2K knowledge? I suppose that I could find a
neighborhood group, somewhere within NYC, that would be interested in what I have to say; but since I barely have any
contact with my next-door neighbors, let alone the other residents on my block, I doubt that it would be effective.
Most of the debates that I've seen in the safe-haven area are concerned with an even more specific issue: is it ethical to
abandon the company you work for? What responsibility do you have to stay on until the bitter end -- and beyond the bitter
end, into the early months of 2000 -- to help your company survive? Discussions about this issue tend to become very
emotional, philosophical, and political, but there's a pragmatic element that's often overlooked. Even if I were a pessimist about
Y2K, and even if I had decided to retreat to a cabin in the wilderness, chances are that I would continue working until the last
possible moment to generate as much income as possible to help my family survive the bad times. Thus, you can criticize me
for "abandoning" New York City if you feel it's appropriate, but I haven't abandoned the Cutter Consortium; I'll continue
doing the same work from my new "virtual office" in New Mexico, at least through the end of 1999. Similarly you can
criticize a Y2K programmer for stockpiling his country cottage with survival food and gold coins and a ham radio, but
chances are that he'll continue working right up to December 31, 1999 at his regular job, in order to make as much money as
possible before the arrival of Millennium Weekend. If you want to argue about ethics, concentrate on the issue of whether it's
ethically acceptable to change jobs from company A to company B during the next 18 months, not on the issue of whether
programmers are going to quit altogether and disappear from society.
If you're going to argue about the ethics of Y2K safe haven issues, it really comes down to a simple and basic question: what
responsibility do programmers have to stay on the job *after* December 31, 1999? I'm very serious about this point: if we
assume that every programmer works 18 hours a day, 7 days a week, at whatever Y2K job he/she should be expected to carry
out between now and December 31, 1999, then do we have a right to expect continued loyalty beyond that point?
This is, in my humble opinion, a personal decision; but I'm astonished at the ease with which commentators, politicians, and
common citizens feel that they have the right to tell everyone else what's appropriate in a situation like this. I would never,
EVER, presume to tell another software engineer what he or she should do in a situation like this; but I do suggest that there
are at least three critical questions you should ask when making your decision:
1. What is your first priority -- yourself, your family, your company, your country, or perhaps some other group or entity?
Most of us have never had to deal with life-or-death issues in the normal course of events, so we've never dealt with these
questions in anything other than an academic basis. I've thought about this a LOT in the past couple of years, and I know
exactly what my priorities are; you need to decide what your priorities are without worrying about whether your decision is
the same as mine or anyone else's. This may not be an academic question: we may be called upon to make significant
personal or family sacrifices for our company or our country.
2. Whose responsibility is the current Y2K situation? Whose fault is it that the Y2K remediation effort wasn't begun in 1993
instead of 1998? Whose fault is it that the Y2K effort is behind schedule? For some people, none of these questions matter;
regardless of blame and responsibility, some IT professionals believe that they are personally responsible for solving the
problem. Others believe that while they may have shared some responsibility for helping to create the Y2K problem in the
60s, 70s, or 80s, they're no longer responsible because their company has procrastinated in repairing the problem. Again, this
is not an academic issue: if current management decisions have doomed your Y2K project to failure, are you ethically
responsible if you agree to continue working until December 31, 1999 but then disappear with your family for a safer
environment?
3. What responsibility do you have if you don't get honest, forthright information from your company -- or, for that matter,
the appropriate government officials? Your own ability to make an informed safe-haven decision about Y2K may be hampered
by the lack of specific information from your CEO/CIO or from government officials who say, "Trust me, everything will be
okay." In that case, what responsibility do you have to stay at your post in the days and weeks after January 1, 2000? This is
part of a larger philosophical question inherent in vendor-company-customer Y2K supply-chain relationships: do you assume
that the other companies in the supply chain are innocent until proven guiilty, or is it more prudent to assume that they're
guilty until proven innocent? If your company is carrying out cold-blooded decisions of this kind regarding their suppliers
and customers, do you have a personal right to carry out a similar evaluation of your own company?
The irony is that none of these issues are new or unique: they've been relevant for every system we've ever built in the IT
industry. But with Y2K, they matter. They really, really matter.
===============
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Edward Yourdon, phone/fax: 888-814-7605
email: ed@yourdon.com Web: yourdon.com
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