Dana Niederer Case Study

December 31, 1999. A day, one would think, that everyone celebrates due to the coming of a new millennium. This, however, is not the case for Dana Niederer. Many people, including herself were scared of this day because of a scare known as the Y2K, or year two thousand, scare. What it was, was a time when programmers and many people in the world were terrified because many programs had been set to have only the last two digits of the program’s year change not four. Dana said, “When the Y2K issue was going on, the direct effect it had on me started in April of 1999. My company, C&R Mechanical, had known that we needed to upgrade its main software because it would not be compatible with everything dated for the 1980’s-’90’s” (Niederer).

“I remember going around and shopping for the new software and within that same time frame, I had also been pregnant with my first daughter Kylie Danielle Niederer. I knew that it would be a different kind of strain than the average pregnant person would normally go through, especially with it being
my first child” (Niederer). Little did she know at the time that this was only the beginning of Dana’s stress. “I started at C&R in ‘98 and have always been the payroll manager, so I do not quite remember the software we had originally had, but we did change what we did have and upgraded to Sage Timberline Software. We had to start upgrading our records with all of the updated information so far such as our current employees, their records, and all of the accounts that needed to be handled. Every thing that we did was job cost based with it being a construction course and was all put into my hands. It was a lot of tedious work that was mandatory to do in order for the company to function as a business while upgrading the software at the same time. It led to many work days on the weekends or extra hours throughout the week” (Niederer). This was an enormous amount of responsibility alone being put on her shoulders.

Many people during the Y2K Scare were terrified of a fallout of all communication and technology, putting many out of business. Many were worried because how would we be able to add to existing records when there were not any paper copies of it all. The whole situation was very scarey because no one knew what to expect. “The plan for the new software was to go live on December first of 1999. Ironically enough, however, I had a doctor’s appointment concerning my pregnancy on, I believe, the last day of November or December first” (Niederer).

“I had already been having some issues with having high blood pressure, and at that particular time is when I was required to go to the doctor every week because it was getting closer to my due date on December twenty-third.
I had to go in and get my blood pressure checked one of the times going, and it was very very high due to the stress of everything going on. They took it again before I had gotten the chance to leave the doctor’s office and it was still high. Due to the fact that it was so high and that I was starting to have contractions, I was put on bed rest. It wasn’t very strict but I was told that if it did not go down they would rush me to the the hospital by an ambulance and be admit me” (Niederer). This scared Dana because this was her first child. She was also worried of what work would say because she did not want to look like a bad employee if she was not doing anything at all. “It was a very bad day”
(Niederer).

“My blood pressure eventually went down low enough to where I did not need to go to the hospital, however I was under enormous amounts of stress. To calm the stress, my doctor would not allow me to go back to work. This upset me because I was afraid that I was going to lose my job, and many other emotions were running through my veins” (Niederer), said Dana. Of course it is understandable to be completely stressed, however being pregnant within the mix of it all is not healthy as it could lead to disorders for the baby, or even cause the baby to be born prematurely. “I ended up going straight from the doctor’s office to work with a note from the doctor explaining the situation I was in to my boss. I made sure everything was fine and she told me that I had to abide by what the doctor had said. After that I had gone home. I received a call from the president of the company at the time saying that my baby’s health and my health were more important than anything at the time, so she wanted me to also listen to the doctor” (Niederer).

With the note saying she could no longer work, Dana had more time to focus on the new chapter in her life: her first child. Stress levels were still very high for her as she went through this pregnancy during the Y2K scare. “Many did not know what was going to happen, and that was scarey. My personal fears about having the baby after the new year were because of: the possible breach of security within the hospital, being in the baby ward would not be good for this as it would be chaotic, and the possible shutting down of businesses. There were also many discharge papers that needed to be filled out and also paperwork for the baby. We were not sure if the elevators were going to work, which would have been bad because we were on the fourth floor and we would not be able to get. With the risk of the computers all completely shut down, I did not want to risk being in there too long. I was induced on December 28 with the purpose of being able to leave the hospital before New Year’s Eve” (Niederer). Preparing for this new millennium was all people could think about doing. Some people just waited to see what would happen, while others took action, had classes, and even had small shelters to live in if anything were to ever go bad.

Looking back at it, the freak out was all a big misunderstanding. Everything ended up turning out great. “The changes that were made to our system are now very adaptable and user friendly. With the newer software it adjusts much more easily than it did in ‘99. To put a visualization in your mind of how old our technology use to be compared to now, picture this. One printer we had was so old that it was a dot matrix printer. They were extremely noisy and were on lined paper. There were dots in the papers with a roll attached to it with edges. As it rolled, it would tighten it and the holes that were perforated for ink rolled out in them and basically would print out what you wanted. They were so old. We do have to remember that technology was newer, and people knew it was somewhat useful however it was made before the internet was even created. This was a scary time for all of us, especially me with the new baby transitioning into my hectic life. It all thankfully turned out just fine in the end though, and a great lesson of how amazing our technological world was left behind” (Niederer).

“I had ended up spending New Year’s Eve with my new family. Although the party did not end up lasting very long, because my husband and daughter were sleeping, it was still a great night. I was the only one awake when midnight rolled around. The only thing that kept running through my mind, however, was if the world was about to go black or if we would keep on living life like we had been” (Niederer). What Dana meant by this was what would happen to their everyday lives. Everyone, that day, had been wondering the same exact things. Was life going to continue on like it had been, or was everything about to change? Dana is doing wonderful today. She is still the payroll manager for C&R Mechanical, and everything there is running smoothly. They still have the same software that they had at the time, however the technology they use them on has greatly upgraded. She has four kids now, the oldest being seventeen and the youngest being five. She is very grateful that everything went so great in 1999, because if it had not, she would not have the beautiful family that she has today.