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 one hundred and fifth letter I wrote.
10/7/04 – Well At Dell
Dear Sooner Plant Friends and Friends from everywhere else,
— No. I know you all are curious to know if we found a new “well” at Dell because of the subject line. — No. Boy! Some of you farmers are Soooo predictable. Geez!!
That has to do with Dell’s concern that we all stay healthy here. — I’m just telling you about the “Well at Dell” thing that we’re doing here, because after being here for over three years I have finally gotten my first hardhat sticker from Dell!!! Yeah. Really. It says, “Well at Dell, Know Your Numbers”.
Ok. So down here it’s more like a “binder” sticker, or a “laptop” sticker than it is a Hardhat sticker, but it’s the thought that counts, and I “thought” it was a hardhat sticker when they gave it to me.
It’s talking about your blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar and body fat. They came around and took our blood yesterday. It was almost as easy as if they had a cart come right by your cubicle.
You just walked up to one person and they took your blood pressure, then this other guy took some blood, then you had to take off your socks and shoes and everything from your pockets and you had to stand on this thing that looked like a bathroom scale, only it was better than that. It somehow calculated your body fat.
I would tell you what it said about my body fat, only I quickly forgot. That happens sometimes you know. Besides, I figured that most of the fat was in my head anyway and there wasn’t much I could do about that.
Not only did I get a bunch of free blood work, I also took a class last week for CPR and First Aid. And the Red Cross gave me a “First Aid Fanny Pack” so when someone gets a cut, or a heart attack, I can run up there with my red bag strapped to my waist and everyone will automatically know that I have been “medically trained”.
They also send people to school to become a First Responder. I think I’m going to take that next year. — They will pay for it. We have so many people in these buildings where I work that the odds are pretty good that someone is going to need the aid of CPR.
Oh yeah. We have the AEDs too. The Automatic External Defibrillators. I was trained in those last week too. So I feel almost as safe as I did when I was on the Confined Space Rescue team, except that they didn’t teach us how to tie different sorts of knots in a rope.
I wasn’t sure if it was real “safety training” since they didn’t teach us how to tie a double figure-8 follow-through. The Safety instructor had all sorts of “horror” stories just like Randy Dailey used to have, so I figured it must have been a real safety class even if we didn’t tie a bunch of knots behind our backs with the lights out.
Note to Reader: To learn more about Randy Dailey and the Confined Space Rescue team see the post Power Plant Confined Space Rescue Team Takes It to the Next Level.
The latest Off-site we had was the week-before-last. Our team went out to watch a movie. It was called Collateral. It was “ok”. The best part was that we went to that movie theater where you get to eat dinner while you’re watching the movie.
So as we were watching all the blood and guts on the movie screen, we were snarfing down a bunch of pizza and drinking Dr. Pepper. — I think I was able to eat three more pieces of pizza than I normally would because I was drinking “Diet” Dr. Pepper!!!
Well. I’d better get ready for my next meeting. It’s a one-on-one with my manager. I’ll write later. — I figure you guys are all on overhaul now anyway. The other day when the wind was blowing from the north, I thought I got a whiff of the precipitator when it starts to smell sour. — Well, at least the weather is cool. Let me know how things are going.
Note to Reader: To learn about how the precipitator turns sour see the post What’s That Strange Power Plant Smell?
Your Well friend from Dell,
Kevin James Anthony Breazile
______________________
Kevin J. Breazile
Global Financial Services I/T
Dell Inc.
(512) 728-1527
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