It wasn't a vision of computer meltdowns that drew Bill Schlondorn to Y2K consulting. His imagery had more to do with long, lazy days spent on the beaches of Maui as he tallied his riches from lucrative Y2K consulting deals. But Schlondorn, like millions of other disappointed consultants, has had to settle for a more pedestrian lifestyle. His business is good--driven mainly by a robust technology market--but hardly the gold mine he envisioned. Now, at best, he hopes for an early retirement. Like many in the technology industry, Schlondorn believed that the Y2K glitch would greatly increase demand among large and small companies for consultants and programmers to revamp old software and stamp out any Y2K-related bugs. For several years, respected experts and government leaders alike have been sounding the alarm that too few programmers were available to fix scores of software programs running in big businesses, government agencies, and schools. The near-pandemonium over programmer scarcity quietly subsided this year as surveys by computer industry analysts showed that the expected shortage never materialized. "It didn't happen," said Schlondorn, the founder and chief executive of