It's sad that the public perception of Y2K is that it was a big fuss about nothing. The reality is a hell of a lot of time and money was spent behind the scenes making damn sure that nothing happened, but of course that's not what the public sees.
It is the same for a lot of things in IT though, whilst everything is working, the assumption (by the public and also managers) is that the IT staff aren't doing anything. Like the proverbial swan, nobody sees the frantic paddling required to keep the visible bits floating serenely by...