Fun with birthdates

[bhskittykatt]

So amongst the ID information that I take down when I check in a guest is their birthdate. I'll type it in MMDDYY format and the computer automatically changes it to MM/DD/YYYY format.

Today, though, when it changed it to MM/DD/YYYY it did something I'd never seen it do before. I was checking in a very sweet, and dare I say even adorable, nonagenarian. I typed in MMDD20, hit TAB, glanced at the screen....and had to laugh.

The computer translated his birthday as MM/DD/2020. That's the first time I've put in a birthday so old that the computer thought it was for the next century.

I actually didn't glimpse it until as I was opening the Invoicing screen, so I checked him in before I went back to fix the date. Yes, the computer let me check in a guest...who according to the entered birthdate wasn't even born yet!

[BeeMused]

Ooooooh you've found the Fountain of Youth! Quick get a patent and start selling it!

[wolfie]

I'd advise sending management a "heads up" about this one. Sounds like the Y2K fix used on the system was to still use a 2-digit year format, but with a shifted "window" so that years from 00-nn (with nn being some arbitrary value) are treated as being 20xx, and years from (nn+1) to 99 are treated as being 19xx, and in-band data is falling on the wrong side of the line. As time goes by, this will start causing problems, but in the opposite direction (i.e. when yy should be treated as 20yy, but gets interpreted as 19yy).

[bhskittykatt]

I haven't seen Boss Man at all today, but I fully plan on sharing it with him. He'll know who to contact further up the foodchain. I have a couple guesses, but I don't want to bother them until I know for sure who the proper contact for our front office software is.