It's almost Y2K, and this small recruiting firm is converting its key systems to client/server, according to a software developer pilot fish who's working on the project.

"We had been a Macintosh shop for email, word processing and the CRM application," fish says.

"We were purchased by a larger competitor in 1999. They used Windows and Microsoft products for all their applications, so we went through an integration with new hardware, software, etc.

"On the go-live day, I remember one user, Barney, who was completely baffled by the 'press control-alt-delete' instructions and icons that appeared on the monitor.

"I took Barney's support call but I couldn't log in remotely, so I went to his workstation. There I found Barney actually pressing on the monitor screen per the instructions.

"I informed Barney that he actually had to use the keyboard in order to log into the system."

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