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 sixtieth letter I wrote.
12/06/02 – Airplanes at Dell
Good morning Fellow Soonerites,
Ok. So I’m not a Soonerite anymore. At least I used to be. Which is more (or less) than others can claim. Anyway. This morning when I walked into my cubicle, I found two pieces of paper sitting on my chair. They looked like some kind of advertisement for Dell. Like a brochure or something.
Upon closer look, one of the pieces of paper had a bunch of dotted lines and letters of the alphabet all over it. On one side of the other piece of paper was a bunch of information about the new computers that we are selling, and on the other side was instructions about how to fold the other piece of paper into a paper airplane in 22 easy steps.
Ok. I thought. I can do this. I sat down at my desk and (after turning on my computers and reading my e-mail and pulling up a database to see what kinds of data was there), I started folding and folding the piece of paper into an airplane. Well. One hour and 22 steps later, I finally had my airplane complete. It looks kind of like a fighter jet.
So I thought, I wonder what I’m supposed to do now? So I walked by the cubicles next to me, and those guys hadn’t showed up for work yet, and their airplanes were still just sheets of paper laying on their chairs. So I came back to my desk and now I’m wondering if we’re going to have some kind of “Paper airplane” fight or something this afternoon. — You know. Something to get us in the Christmas spirit.
I haven’t found the answer to that question yet, so my paper airplane is just sitting on my Desktop computer which is sitting on my desk behind my monitor next to my hardhat sticker that says that I’m a “Certified Operator of OG&E Industrial Powered Trucks”. You know… The red round sticker that you are supposed to stick on your hardhat to show that you can drive the forklift.
Note to Reader: To learn more about hardhat stickers at the power plant, read the post What Does a Hardhat Sticker Tell You About a Power Plant Man?
I never put those stickers on my hardhat, I just put them in my lunch box, so that one day when I’m working somewhere else, doing something completely different, I could retrieve all those old hardhat stickers and tack them up on the walls of my cubicle.
There is one hardhat sticker that I never received, because I was gone on overhaul or something at the time. It was the one where it said something like, “Be Safe, because I love you man” (or something like that — I’m sure you guys know the one I’m talking about). — Well. I never had one of those, and I tried to get one for quite a while.
So I have a spot on the wall of my cubicle just for that sticker. I figured that someday, somehow, I’ll get one of those stickers from somewhere, and that spot will be there waiting for it. — Well enough rambling like Rambin’ Ann.
I thought I was doing pretty good there. — I was going from topic to topic, talking about how the paper airplane was sitting on my computer, then about the hardhat stickers, and then about how I was hoping that someone would mail me one of those stickers that I never got– oh, is that what I was saying? –, and then talking about how I was rambling like Ramblin’ Ann, which is what I’m talking about right now. — So, I’ll stop and go to the next paragraph.
Note to Reader: To learn more about Ramblin’ Ann see the post Ed Shiever Trapped in a Confined Space with a Disciple of Ramblin’ Ann.
Next Paragraph….. Well. Today is the last day before I go on vacation. I’m going to Disney World as you may remember from my last letter. I came to my cubicle this morning instead of going to the “Data Warehouse” down at the “other” building, because I thought that our team was going to have to move next week while I was out of town, and I was going to pack up my stuff and put them into boxes.
As it turned out, we will not be moving until some time in January, so I don’t have to pack just quite yet. — When we do move, we will be moving to the building where I’ve been working for the past 4 or 5 months. Except that I’ve been working on the 2nd floor and we will be moving to the 4th floor.
We are doing that because our particular group has grown recently, and our upper manager wants us to all be together in one place. Right now we are scattered all over the place. Some are on the same floor as me. Others are up on the 3rd floor. Some are in the building across the way, and others are in the building that we are going to move to, which is where the Data Warehouse guys are, which if you remember, is not a factory. It’s actually a much bigger building than the one that I’m in right now.
At least it has a lot more parking, so you don’t have to park real far away and take a shuttle bus to your car at the end of the day. I think their cafeteria is better, so I’m not complaining. (You know. — The important stuff).
Hey. Someone just threw an airplane into my cubicle, and I heard some snickering over the wall. It sounds like my Vice President. I’ve got to go. The war has begun.
I wish you all a Merry Christmas. I’ll try to drop by on December 23 to visit.
Your Friendly Dell Pilot,
Kevin James Anthony Breazile
______________________
Kevin J. Breazile
Dell Computer Corporation
(512) 728-1527
Power Plant Men 