Contractor quaffed his way through Y2K compliance while the client scowled
- Reference: 1775197694
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2026/04/03/on_call/
- Source link:
To mark the occasion, The Register has revisited our mailbag of holiday-adjacent stories to tell the tale of a reader we'll Regomize as "Marcus," who told us he worked as a contractor for a "very large, very blue, blue-chip company" in the Netherlands and helped it prepare for Y2K.
"By special request, I was going to watch over my flock of Y2K changes on New Year's Eve," Marcus told On Call.
[1]
Marcus was confident he'd done the job right, so brought some beers to work.
[2]
[3]
"As I sat at my 3278 green screen terminal watching the logs for problems, I sipped my bottle of Grolsch," he told On Call, before admitting that bottle was "One of a few in my suspiciously large briefcase."
Y2K passed without notable incident.
[4]
"One thing ran overnight with the wrong files," he confessed. "So I gave it the right files from the right year and the right century."
He also spotted a typo that would have broken the company, but fixed that up too.
[5]Engineer sabotaged hardware then complained when it didn't work
[6]While you're here, could you go out of your way to do an impossible job?
[7]Blustering Blackbeard's PC was all at sea, sysadmin got him shipshape in seconds
[8]Techie was given strict instructions not to disrupt client. Then he touched one box and the lights went out
"I whooped and finished my last beer," Marcus told On Call, actions that saw a project manager who was also working the Y2K shift accuse him of being drunk.
A comedy sketch Marcus once watched flashed into his mind. "For once in my entire life I had the right answer," Marcus wrote. "I replied: 'Well, why the hell not? I've been drinking all day!'"
A little later, when Marcus checked his bank account to see if he'd been paid for working Y2K he noticed the transaction identifier mixed the usual collection of seemingly random numbers and the string "Grolsch."
[9]
"Coincidence? I guess so," he told On Call.
Have you worked a holiday and decided to combine business with liquid pleasure? If so, indulge yourself again by [10]clicking here to send On Call an email. We'd love to celebrate your story by featuring it in The Register on a future holiday weekend. ®
Get our [11]Tech Resources
[1] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/columnists&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ac-PxD8sT2MNHqR1mZSi2gAAAIw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/columnists&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ac-PxD8sT2MNHqR1mZSi2gAAAIw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/columnists&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ac-PxD8sT2MNHqR1mZSi2gAAAIw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/columnists&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ac-PxD8sT2MNHqR1mZSi2gAAAIw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/27/on_call/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/20/on_call/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/13/on_call/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/06/on_call/
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/columnists&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ac-PxD8sT2MNHqR1mZSi2gAAAIw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] mailto:oncall@theregister.com
[11] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Several years back
Work had decided that they were going to throw a bit of a "do" after the firm won a few business awards. Bosses didn't seem to need much encouragement to go out on a piss-up anyway, it seemed.
The company had a polymer production lab downstairs, using chemicals that in some cases needed to be kept refrigerated. As a result there was a large walk-in fridge next to the lab, about 20 metres square and lined with racking. The work do was horse racing, so a large quantity of food and booze was procured by the company and stored in the fridge for loading onto the coach that evening after work finished.
Some of the production staff asked their boss if they could grab a tin after work before the coach arrived and head outside for a smoke. He let them do so "Just don't make it obvious" was the instruction. They all went and hid down the side of the building, technically on the public highway and by now off the clock.
The ops director (who was a total prick) happened to see them and threatened them with an almighty bollocking awaiting on Monday. As he headed upstairs back to his office, he passed the sales office - who had also helped themselves to the booze and were all sat at their desks!
Unsurprisingly nothing ever came of his threats to the production guys after a few others had commented on the sales team drinking at their desks....
Re: Several years back
Storing food or drink in a laboratory refrigerator that stores chemicals (or anything) gives me nightmares; gives laboratory managers and WH&S the horrors.
Don't Do It !
As a kid more than five decades ago in subtropical Australia I heards a tragic news item on the work radio just before Christmas where a small firm had prepared their grounds for the Christmas party by clearing the grass etc.
The employee delegated to do this when finished, had decanted the remaining Paraquat herbicide into an empty Cola bottle and left it in the canteen fridge.
Later another employee working outside came in from the tropical heat and grabbed a cold bottle of coke and quaffed it.
Took three horrific days to die and left a young family.
Don't Do It !
the site was opened
The company had opened a new site and a company celebration was organised. The site was described as "a high tech victorian prison".
During the party the production supervisor came out and asked for help. I couldn't go into the building drunk. I went into the security centre and spoke to the staff by phone. I gave them some suggestions and said i'd be in the following day if the problems continued.
I think things worked....
In europe (france and germany) drinking on site is allowed. A glass or two but not getting drunk.
Drunk while migrating a network
Many moons ago, a company I supported through the MSP I worked for got a new person responsible for IT and as they were only used to running Netware decided that the fully functioning doing exactly network of 4 Windows NT Servers were was required to be migrated to Netware 4.11 (the exact opposite direction that world + Dog was going)
The weekend of the chosen to carry out the migrations co-incided with the birthday of the company.
So me and my colleagues were migrating servers all day and most of the night Friday and all day and all night saturday and doing the final steps on the sunday whilst migrating the client PCs on the sunday into the Monday with users going live on the Tuesday AM.
Great you think, but the company had a large party on the Saturday, family even with performers bouncy castles hog roasts etc. then chjild free in the evening.
All day the MD of the company kept giving us all beer and telling us we deserved it, despite declining it multiple times he even went so far as to say if I bring you drink into the server room and you dont drink it your companies contract renewal wont go well.
Migrating AD to Novells Directory services and exchnage to groupwise after many many beers was a fun experience.
The sunday was also a bit of a trial with eveyone have next to no sleep and skirting hangovers.
But the users came in on Tuesday and all logged in and got on with their work.
the contract renewal went through without a hiccup
Bolly2k
For Y2K I had several of my team on-site, and the rest on-call.
In solidarity, I was monitoring things from home as I worked my way through two bottles of Bolly.
Nothing went wrong, though I may have become a bit squiffy.