After I left the power plant and went to work for Dell on August 20, 2001, I wrote letters back to my friends at the plant letting them know how things were going. This is the fifty fifth letter I wrote. Keep in mind that at the time when I originally penned this letter I didn’t intend on it being posted online.
10/18/02 – Computers at Dell
Dear Northern Buddies,
I hope everything is going well with you guys. This has been an interesting week for me. First of all, on Monday I spent half of the day at one High School, and the other half at another one teaching the Teachers how to use PowerPoint (It was what they called “Staff Development Day”).
I brought my daughter along with me (Elizabeth), because she is the real PowerPoint Guru in my family. She was able to answer the “harder” questions that stumped even the seasoned PowerPoint user such as myself. She got a kick out of teaching the teachers since she is only 12 years old.
She made all sorts of PowerPoint Presentations during the day that mainly had the theme, “Dude, you’re getting’ a Dell”. — Since she was a Dell representative. At one school, I was actually teaching in a room full of Gateway computers. — about 1/4 of them didn’t work properly. Luckily at the second school, we were all using Dells.
Anyway. When I came back to work on Tuesday, I found out that my “older” computer had been “replaced” (sort of) with a new one. It had been upgraded in my absence. Now I am typing on a very fast computer with a really quiet keyboard. This is great. — I also have my old computer still sitting under my desk, but I’m not using it anymore. So, I actually have 3 computers in my cubicle now.
I have spent the rest of the week working on my projects. They are coming along right on schedule, so everything is good. I had a couple of meetings with my new manager, and he seems to be a real nice guy. I’ll keep you informed about how this team operates.
I wonder if we will have some interesting team-builders like we had with my last manager. Probably not as colorful. I still can’t get the motion picture out of my head of my manager flying through the water chutes on that little raft in the Master Blaster at the big water park we went to. I think at one point we practically went upside down.
I don’t know if you guys heard, (or even care), but when HP and Compaq merged last spring, they became the largest computer company in the world (as far as computer sales). Well. They just announced this week that Dell has once again become the largest. We out-sold the combined company of HP and Compaq this past quarter. — It isn’t a surprise to me. As fast as we’re spittin’ out computers, I’m surprised they don’t use them to pave the roads. — Who knows, maybe someday they will.
This afternoon. Actually, starting in a few minutes, we are having our last “Team-builder” for our team. We are going to “Fast Eddies” for a two hour Happy Hour. So I need to wrap this up. I promise, I won’t drink too much, so I’ll be safe when driving home. – My manager said she was going to be buying us a bunch of hors d’ouevres (sometimes pronounced “Horse doovers”, but usually pronounced “Or Durvs” — in case you wondered what I was saying).
My manager just came by my cubicle and told me to hurry up, so I’ll write to you later…..
Have a safe week.
Your Friendly Dell Programmer,
Kevin J. Breazile
______________________
Kevin J. Breazile
CIA: Customer Experience, Integrated Services Model, and Ariba
–CIA, we work behind the scenes so you don’t have to–
Dell Computer Corporation
(512) 728-1527
Power Plant Men 