Comments
Ovze t1_iy26zla wrote
I came here for this kind of stories! Thanks for sharing
GreazyMecheazy t1_iy2j3pg wrote
We had an end of the world party on that day. I honestly cannot tell you what happened, but I know I did have fun, so it was worth it!
WeCanDoThisCNJ t1_iy1uvgd wrote
LOL, the place I worked made us stay through midnight in case something went horribly wrong. Someone at midnight flipped the light switches off, freaking out a lot of people. I won’t say that light flipper was me, but….
YourAverageTylerFan OP t1_iy1vcxz wrote
Thats terrible! (I would have done the same thing)
No_Guidance1953 t1_iy1vu76 wrote
Someone snuck into the garage and flipped the breaker on our party.
Dinx81 t1_iy21bzx wrote
I worked at a seating factory then. We had to come in for an hour on New Year’s Day to make sure everything worked properly. The line started up going backwards. Maintenance was just screwing with us.
the_colonelclink t1_iy2hi2n wrote
Surely you all got some egregiously large penalty rate coming in for an hour on NYE?
Dinx81 t1_iy2x4bo wrote
I think it was double time plus we got paid for 4 hours instead of 1
jetoler t1_iy2f3ob wrote
Did the phone ring but nobody was there?
WeCanDoThisCNJ t1_iy3sgye wrote
Those where the days when “the call came from inside the house” was truly terrifying in horror movies.
shastapoonugget t1_iy22djr wrote
Dec 21 2012 I was replacing a roof on someone's house. We were cracking jokes all day about end of the world, Mayan calendar, etc. Around noon the radio we had sounded off with the emergency alert signal. It was an amber alert (missing kid) that was settled an hour later. But when the alert went off the whole crew went dead silent and stood there listening. It's all fun and games till shit hits the fan :)
KnifeFightAcademy t1_iy26vse wrote
My local radio station was playing the countdown and went 'off the air' as they started to cheer "HAPPY NEW YE........ " they had close to 30 seconds of dead air as a prank.
StarshipAI t1_iy2bda2 wrote
I was at an extremely basic party for Y2K. 12 or so people. One guy decided to go hide in the closet where the breaker box was in this house. But someone suggested we all go outside to hear fireworks at midnight. We did. He was in a closet for the stroke of midnight and none of us even noticed he killed the power. Every other house on the street was still powered up. It was actually funnier that he wasted it on nothing.
MolotovMocktails t1_iy2bqrq wrote
I actually did this to my family on YTK when I was 12. My parents and grandparents were up partying with a few friends from the neighborhood. I remember everyone was talking about YTK and the end of the world for weeks prior and how it was just a hoax but you could still tell a few people were genuinely concerned. Especially my grandma.
One of the older kids at the party joked that we should prank our parents and turn the power off. I was a 12 year old girl not known for being a prankster or doing anything crazy at the time but immediately blurted out that I knew where the power breaker was. This kids face lit up with glee and then we began formulating a plan on how pull this off without getting caught.
I pretended to go to sleep but then snuck out of my second story bedroom by climbing/jumping off a second story deck that had no stairs and then crawling to our detached garage a couple hundred feet away where the breaker box was. I used a walkie talkie with the neighbor kid who was doing the count down from inside the house so I could turn it off right when it hit midnight.
We lived out in the middle of nowhere so our neighbors were a couple acres away so from inside the house you couldn’t automatically see lights from anywhere else. Pretty sure there’s a family video somewhere taken on a camcorder from my grandmother standing and recording the countdown on the tv and then the power going off and everything going black and her cursing in disbelief. ‘No way. No Fucking Way!’
I hid under my dads truck and waited for everyone to come outside and listened to their conversation go from panic to confusion as they saw lights from the city and other neighbors houses and then I finally rolled out from under the truck laughing hysterically. Most of the adults were laughing with us as me and the other kid proudly revealed everything but my grandma was PISSED and wouldn’t even look at me. Pretty sure she gave me the side eye for weeks.
Good times. Sorry Grandma.
palmtreevibes t1_iy2f2u2 wrote
Grandma was a bad sport
ZubLor t1_iy2mb7y wrote
Grandma needed to change her shorts
not_falling_down t1_iy1w1wk wrote
Literally nobody thought that it would be a world-ending problem.
But it most certainly would have been a world-disrupting problem, if not for the massive teams of computer scientists working overtime to fix all the code.
The only reason that nothing much went wrong is because of all the worker-hours spent making all the necessary changes.
mootannie t1_iy23n8r wrote
That's not exactly true. My stepdad thought everything was going to shut down and began disaster prepping that summer. He would also occasionally talk about the pope being the antichrist, so... You know... Not everyone but y2k hysteria definitely affected some people.
not_falling_down t1_iy24r11 wrote
>Not everyone but y2k hysteria definitely affected some people.
Oh, the hysteria was definitely a thing - but what I am saying it that it was not entirely unfounded; things would have been bad if not for a lot of people putting in a lot of time to fix it.
RedneckNerd23 t1_iy2depn wrote
People recognizing a future problem and working hard to fix it before it's too late. Holy fuck what happened
Muroid t1_iy2f19r wrote
They fixed the problem before it appeared so everyone else decided it was a big nothingburger and vowed never to let anyone get them worked up like that over nothing again.
NAND_110_101_011_001 t1_iy2jmgn wrote
If you mean what happened to the world's ability to prevent future problems? It's probably about the same. There's a huge monetary incentive for businesses to maintain the functionality of their critical information systems. There's a monetary disincentive to reduce your own pollution or for society to reduce its consumption for example.
wintremute t1_iy2axax wrote
Literally the only issue I ran into was my parents' VCR thought it was 1973. The day of the week and month stayed correct.
And I was in retail PC repair at the time. No customers had Y2K issues.
Tensor3 t1_iy2i7i8 wrote
My dad was one of them, so I was pretty confident nothing would happen. I just ignored it and went about life like any other day
not_falling_down t1_iy36y30 wrote
And you were only able to do that because of all the behind-the-scenes work that was done ahead of time to fix the issue.
Tensor3 t1_iy3r67o wrote
That's what I was saying. I know of all the work thay was done because my dad was working on it.
FartAttack911 t1_iy2ai3w wrote
Remembering my old neighbor Lloyd and that time around 2005 that he began eating his bulk food from Y2K before it all expired lol
matzohballz t1_iy2c08g wrote
My mom moved to NYC in 1977. She had just plugged in her hairdryer when the power went out. She thought she caused the blackout of 77 😂
TheRipsawHiatus t1_iy2cw5s wrote
My cousin and I were 9 years old and TERRIFIED of Y2K. We were having a sleepover that New Year's Eve, but were struggling to stay up to midnight so we decided to settle in for bed. We had the genius idea of plugging a night light in next to us so we could keep an eye on it. If it stayed on through the night, we knew we were in the clear! Well we didn't realize it had an old bulb in it, so all hell broke loose when that fucker flickered out a little while later. Absolutely hysterical, we busted into my sleeping aunt and uncle's bedroom screaming about the world ending... They were not happy.
Awdayshus t1_iy22v6k wrote
I was at a friend's apartment that New Year's Eve. Shortly before midnight, we went out on the balcony. This was one of those apartment complexes where there were three identical buildings around the parking lot. So probably half the balconies had people outside yelling and cheering. We all started counting down together and cheering after midnight.
Then people started going back inside. As it quieted down, I noticed that the fourth side of the rectangle formed by the three apartment buildings was the interstate highway. There were cars driving on it. There had been cars the entire time we were out on the balcony.
Personally, I don't think New Year's Eve is a big deal anymore. But I still can't imagine why so many people were out driving at midnight when the most significant digit in the year was rolling over. I can imagine reasons why one or two people might be out, but this was comparable to midnight traffic any other night of the year.
atleastitsnotgoofy t1_iy29pjp wrote
My girlfriend worked at a video store at the time and all their systems went down. She called me in a panic.
Matsumura_Fishworks t1_iy2ao85 wrote
During the countdown, the owner of the house where we were partying cut the main breaker and freaked everyone the fuck out…
Gregbot3000 t1_iy2b0kh wrote
We flipped the breaker at the party we were at. Only one guy fell for it though.
Alternative_Plate398 t1_iy2b1mg wrote
I was at my aunts that year with all my cousins. They lived close to a baseball field. When it hit midnight someone out in the field and set off those big expensive 4 of July type fireworks and I thought it was power lines transformer boxes blowing up. I was 12. And terrified.
Vegetable-Comment-61 t1_iy2ba5x wrote
My dad switched the power off, everyone panicked besides my uncle who looked across the street and said "well why do the neighbors have power?"
SaberHaven t1_iy2chn3 wrote
Where I was at midnight the entire sky started glowing red. Turns out someone let up a flair and it was overcast so it reflected everywhere off of the low cloud blanket. It had me going for a minute!
stayathmdad t1_iy2c9h7 wrote
Happened to me. About 30 seconds after midnight power went out.
Girlfriend started to freak out, my heaet rate definitely went up!
Then power was back on!
MarsMonkey88 t1_iy2d1mw wrote
My brothers friend was in the countryside outside of one of the two largest cities in South Africa- I don’t remember which- and they happened to lose power at 11:59 on New Years Eve 1999, and they 100% thought it was the apocalypse for like 5 min. (There’s a chance that either my brother or his friend was just full of shit and that never happened. There’s also also a chance that my brother confused Singapore with Johannesburg, or something silly like that.)
Ron0hh t1_iy2e97z wrote
I was on sixth street in Austin, TX partying when it turned over. I tried to call my parents but my phone and all my buddies' phones were not working. Gave me a little scare until I realized everyone was trying to call at the same time.
chr0nicpirate t1_iy2ewe9 wrote
Imagine the number of people who prank their paranoid family/friends by sneakily flipping the breaker box at midnight just to make them freak out
badger319 t1_iy2f00a wrote
Fun fact, about 15 minutes after Y2K turned, my power DID go off!
Came back on momentarily but that was a funny moment of restrained worry on my part.
kwaters1 t1_iy2if4g wrote
Same thing happened to us in South GA. I figured someone at the power company was having a good laugh, but it did cause everyone to get quiet until the lights came back on.
Thatsnodrumset t1_iy2gbj1 wrote
I just watched this episode of my name is earl on Disney+ last night!
ZombieMastodon t1_iy2gwij wrote
Brother in law literally just told me a story at thanksgiving about this. Apparently he got in trouble and was grounded to his room (basement) and as the countdown was happening, his cousin was listening and giving him hand signals. When the countdown hit zero, he tripped the main breaker, and cut to the power to the whole house. What’s more is, his grandfather was a HUGE believer in the Y2k thing and stayed home that night but called his daughter who was also attending the party, so obviously since it was ‘99 they were talking on a lan line and it cut out at midnight with the rest of the power. Everyone freaked out and some cried for a good 10 minutes until they noticed the neighbors power was still on by looking out the window.
grogling5231 t1_iy2iglb wrote
Must have been on a cordless phone as power being cut wouldn't make a regular land-line phone go out.
agent_wolfe t1_iy2jvxx wrote
Lol. My sister thought she was so funny & pretended the light switch wouldn’t turn on. But I was like “we’re watching the countdown on TV, I’m sure we’re fine.”
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bobbery5 t1_iy2fjla wrote
I think this was part of a plot of an episode of My Name Is Earl.
qiwizzle t1_iy2fmk5 wrote
I had a party and someone flipped the breakers after everyone went to sleep. It got me pretty good.
Next-Mode3183 t1_iy2g4u0 wrote
I was on yahoo chat at the time and had my first experience with a yahoo booter what ever it was called at the time. My entire screen froze with the spam of pms and dings thought it was over lol
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GodCoderImposter t1_iy2ii2l wrote
I was at a party at my buddies house for NYE ‘99. As we were counting down his father hit the houses main breakers exactly at zero. Definitely had a dozen 18-22 year olds starting to panic before he turned them back on two minutes later. He held out just long enough that people were starting to convince themselves it couldn’t be a joke.
CleanReplacement3498 t1_iy2ikhr wrote
We always have a big get together on my family's farm for the new year. Well in 2000 my dad snuck off and listened to my family counting down and right at one he flipped the breaker to the house. People were freaking out. As the cry's died down we all heard something outside... It was my dad laughing his ass off, rolling on the ground, at all the people who lost their shit.
mchagis13 t1_iy2iwhx wrote
I was playing wheel of fortune on an ms-dos computer and well i never got to finish that game.
Ilovepancakes55 t1_iy2j4e5 wrote
Me and my cousin went down my basement and switched the power off, I was 15 he was 17. Greatest night of our lives
CloroxWipes- t1_iy2j9ns wrote
My buddy Eric cut the breaker at a party during the countdown, it was hilarious and one guy really lost it
Vegemiteonpikelets t1_iy2jfzz wrote
So my dad was the CEO of the local power company. A few of his staff found out where he was going to a Y2K party and briefly turned of the lights for the whole suburb at midnight just to fuck with him.
Fgame t1_iy2jlca wrote
The batteries in my Game Boy actually died at like 12:15 and I started losing my shit
HellStoneBats t1_iy2q9o5 wrote
We went bush for 3 weeks, no radio or anything. I don't remember if my parents were worried about Y2K or if they were worried about the people worried about Y2K, but I remember my 9yo self being very confused as to why we were on holiday for so long.
ECURBBNEHOC t1_iy2z3sq wrote
I had business computers that were not tied to the grid. Had a techie come and advise, was told; “ you have nothing to worry about, just manually change Clocks if they are wrong. “
IHateMath14 t1_iy24ql8 wrote
During the end of 2012, there was actually a massive, I mean MASSIVE, solar storm that the sun ejected that JUST missed us. If it would of hit it would’ve knocked out ALL global power and could’ve very well been the end of the world
ObeseTsunami t1_iy22d6n wrote
On December 21st, 2012, some friend and I were celebrating the end of the world at a buddies place. At about 9:30 PM there was a clap of thunder during a massive snow storm (which is very bizarre but not unheard of) and the power went out, we also heard about a meteor striking Russia on the same day. We thought we were about to die so we got incredibly stoned then woke up happily in the morning. All still very close friends to this day.