Letters to the Power Plant #19 — The Young Dell Dude

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 nineteenth 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.

01/18/02 – The Young Dell dude

Dear friends from Sooner,

I have had a pretty good week.  I am in what is called, “Stabilization”.  That is what happens after an application starts to be used, and you have to sit around and see if it breaks.  So I have spent the week learning new programming languages.

The new languages I have been learning are:  VB.Net, ASP.Net, ADO.Net, and C# (Pronounced “See Sharp”).  Hmmm.  Well the first list with all the Nets in them seem to have something to do with Tennis or Basketball or fishing, but that C Sharp one definitely sounds like something to do with music.  Well, these are the new languages that I will use when I write applications to use with Windows XP.  I think the XP stands for “Expensive”, but I’m not sure.  It’s pretty neat anyway.

One thing I noticed today while I was sitting in the front lobby waiting for someone that was taking me to lunch, is that unlike Sooner where the average age of the employees is somewhere around 47 years old, here at Dell, the average age of the employees must be somewhere around 25.  This makes for quite a different atmosphere.  I had a conversation with a fellow Dellite while I was waiting, and it went something like this:

“Hello Man!  Howsit goin?”

“Fine.  Everything is going well.”

“Rad man.  That’s really Tight.”

“Oh.  Well.  I suppose so.  How are things with you?”

“Like, cool as a mombo jombo dude.  It doesn’t shake any more foam than this.”

“Oh, well.  That’s great.”

“Say, man, weren’t you the dude that had that bucket man?”

“Oh.  Do you mean that bucket in my cubicle?”

“Yeah, man, like I freaked when I spied that man.  I thought I was like dreaming or spacin’ man.  You should have seen me shakin’.”

“Oh.  Yes.  I do seem to remember that now.  I was the guy that helped you to the rest room.  Remember?”

“Remember?  Remember what?”

“Oh…  nothing.”

“Say man.  I was just thinkin’ that this floor looks really shakin’.  Look at how those stones go that way, and these stones do that square thing, like that.”

“Oh.  Yes.  I see what you mean.”

“That took some wild talent.  You know it did, ’cause someone must of been dreamin’ to come up with that man.”

“Yes.  — I suppose it did.”

“You know it man.  Real talent.  Talent, that’s what it took.”

“Well.  I’ll see you later.  Take it easy.”

“Sure man.  Stay cool dude.  Yeah, that bucket thing.  huhuhuhuh.  That was great man.”

Does that sound anything even remotely similar to conversations at Sooner?  I sure don’t remember any like that.  That’s one computer language I haven’t learned yet.  The one where you communicate to each other in some foreign language that remotely sounds like English.  I would try to learn it, but I haven’t found a dictionary or a book to teach me what it all means.

Everything is going well here.  It is good to hear from you guys.  Keep writing.  I’ll write soon.

You Friendly Dell Programmer,

Kevin James Anthony Breazile

______________________

Kevin J. Breazile

Programmer Analyst II

Dell Computer Corporation

(512) 728-1527