In 1999, my job description was basically “professional panic manager.” By day, I was a Senior Field Consultant for Consultis. By night, I moonlighted with my own company, Schneider Consulting. Translation: I got paid to keep computers from throwing a digital temper tantrum at midnight on December 31st.

The “crisis”? Two-digit years. Computers thought “00” meant 1900, not 2000. Which, according to the news, meant banks would collapse, planes would fall from the sky, and your toaster might start a small nuclear war. Basically, we were all one spreadsheet away from the Stone Age.