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 second letter I wrote.

09/27/02 – Two computers at Dell, or is it three

Hello everyone from Soonerville,

I haven’t been able to write lately, because I have been working on so many projects at one time that I haven’t even had time to open up a letter and start typing.  But here I am now….. And only because I skipped out on our Volleyball/Basketball team-builder that I was supposed to go to this afternoon.

I had another meeting in the middle of Austin at a Starbucks Coffeehouse to discuss our High School class that we are teaching so I didn’t have to go to the Volleyball thing.  Well, anyway.  Here I am.

I have been working on a project with another guy for the past couple of weeks, and also working on my own separate project simultaneously.  I talked him into bringing his computer over to my cubicle so we could work on his project while I am still working on my project too.

So now, as I am sitting back at my own cubicle, (at least for today), I have my two computers, and the other guy’s computer here in my cubicle.  This is getting to be pretty fun.  Some times it gets confusing as to what mouse you should grab when you are trying to click on a button.  —  I was moving the mouse all over and banging it on the desk before I realized that my “partner” was giving me a strange look and wondering why I was trying to break his mouse.  —  It all made sense to me after I gave him back his mouse and started using my own.

When I arrived home the other day, and walked in the living room, Kelly was sitting on the floor with a load of laundry just about covering her up.  I said, “Hey Kell” (That’s what I call her — Kell).  “Hey Kell, What’s up?  How do you like the new shirt I got today?”

She just looked at me with a blank look on her face and said, “Great.  Just what I need.  Another shirt to wash.  Where do you think all these shirts came from?”  When I looked at the laundry, she was sitting in a pile of tee-shirts that in one way or another I had received over the past year while working at Dell.

I guess she didn’t have that fuzzy feeling that I had about bringing home a new free shirt.  —  So, not wanting her to feel left out of the “fuzzies”, I showed her how this just wasn’t a tee-shirt like most of my shirts, this was a “high quality” shirt with stitched letters, not dyed on letters.

That didn’t seem to impress her either.  So last night when she brought our son Anthony to Karate class, I made her favorite dinner —  Chicken in Mushrooms and Cream Sauce.  That cheered her up.

At least she wasn’t so worried about where she was going to store all my shirts.  She said I would never have to buy a shirt again. —  I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I’m supposed to be getting two more shirts tomorrow morning when I go to the “Walk to Cure Diabetes” at the Dell Diamond where the minor league baseball team “Round Rock Express” plays ball.

Last Friday when I would normally have written to you guys, I had to go to our Happy Hour at Fast Eddies.  It was a place where you could drink beer and shoot pool.  We ended up playing darts for about an hour, and then having a heated discussion with an unfortunate Data Warehouse guy that accidentally stumbled into the bar, not knowing that there was a whole team of developers there waiting to pounce on him.

When the DBA (That stands for Database Administrator) came to work this past Monday, he was the nicest I had ever seen him.  I guess all that “pouncing” did some good after all.  I thought we were going to be arrested, or at least thrown out of the bar….. I mean the “team-building event”.

Well, It’s after 5 on a Friday evening, and my project partner has just left, so I guess I should be on my way.

Let me know how things are going up there.  I haven’t heard much lately.  I guess you guys must be about as busy as I am.

Oh.  Alan.  Kelly says to say “HI” to Nancy.  She misses her a lot.

Your friend from the cubicle of three computers,

Kevin James Anthony Breazile

______________________

Kevin J. Breazile

CIA: Customer Experience, Integrated Services Model, and Ariba

—When the Mission seems Impossible, call the CIA!–

Dell Computer Corporation

(512) 728-1527

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 first letter I wrote.

09/13/02 – A quiet week at Dell

Dear friends from the “Shangri-La” of Noble and Pawnee Counties,

I understand that today is the last day for Brent Kautzman and Chris Cornish.  I also found out after I sent my letter earlier this week, that Jody Gaddy is also gone.  —  Well, I’m glad that Sooner is finally getting rid of all the “Old” folks!!!!!  I thought those “Old” guys would never leave!!!!  —  Oh.  Wait a minute.  I was looking at my Excel Spreadsheet of Sooner Employees sorted by their ages “UPSIDE-DOWN”.  Those are the “Young” ones that are leaving!!!!  Oops.

I was graced this week by the presence of Ron Madron and Rich Litzer, who came down to visit.  While they were here visiting me, they also took the opportunity to attend some class that allowed them to collect mileage for coming down to see me.  We went out to eat at a “Texas” steakhouse.

It was good to see someone from “the ol’ stompin’ ground”.  They were both doing well, and glad to be far away from where the coal dust wisps up from the coal pile sending huge dust-devils (coal-devils) sailing between the smoke stacks.

I have spent the week working on my project.  —  I was also told yesterday that I get to work on another project starting next week.  That should be fun.  —  This week has been rather —  Shall I say? ——  “quiet”.

There were no “all-hands” meetings.  No “team-builders”. No Steven the Dell Dude running around acting goofy.  —  There was just “work”.  What are we supposed to do?  I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.  —  It was fun.

I was able to sit at the computer all week and type away and test my database stuff, and no one came by and took me away to some “resort” to build my confidence, or push me off of a barge in the middle of the lake to see if my teammates would rescue me. (It’s called “push the old guy in the lake and see if anyone cares”  — It’s supposed to have great team-building potential).

I’m sure you guys understand these kind of weeks.  It’s when you are on Hots, and nothing breaks down all week so you can sit at the computer writing Task Lists all week without anyone calling you on the radio saying, “Keeeevinnnn, (or “fill in your name”), Guess what just broke doooowwwwnnnnn?  That’s right.  Could you please go take a look at it?  Since you aren’t doing anything, and everyone else is all tied up.

So you actually get focused and get a lot of work done because no one keeps taking you away from your job.  —  Well that’s been the kind of week I have had.

—  Except for during our Staff meeting when we sang “Happy Birthday to some people on our team that had birthdays, and ate cake.”  —  Oh yes, and we discussed how we will now have a new process at work.

We haven’t decided on the date, but it’s going to be something like every 3rd Friday of the month, our team will be “required” to go to a “Happy Hour” at a place called “Fast Eddie’s”, or some other place of our choosing, to team build from 4:00 to 5:00.  They haven’t decided yet if we need to do this every 2 weeks, or just once a month.

The thought is that since our team is kind of spread out. (I’m off in another building usually, and some of our team is upstairs from the rest of the team), that we need to get together to “team-build” in a “big way” regularly.  —  So, Oh boy.   Just when you thought your Friday afternoons were going to be slow…… Now I have something to do after I fill out my Weekly Status Report, at least once a month.

I may have to schedule my “Letters” to you guys at a different time during the week if this is going to interfere with my “Networking” effort with you guys.  —  That’s what I call writing these e-mails to you guys.

It’s called Networking.  —  It’s practically a requirement down here.  —  Keeping in touch with all your old contacts.  — You never know when they might come in handy.  —  For instance.  Here I am sitting and staring at the computer screen, and I have a total “programmer’s block” (this is similar to a “Writer’s Block”).  So  —-  What do I do?  I open up a new e-mail, and I start to write to you guys, and before you know it, I come up with all sorts of things to program.

Just like I come up with all sorts of things to “ramble” to you guys about.  It’s very handy to be able to “Network”.  —  When my manager comes by and asks me why I’m typing such a long e-mail, I just tell her that I’m Networking.  —  It works every time.  —  Not only that, but it looks good on my performance appraisal.

You guys may want to try it.  When you have little to do, or you seem to be having trouble getting motivated…… Try “networking”.  You just start writing a letter to me, and tell me all sorts of random things about your day, and before you know it, you will become motivated to go do your job.  —  As a matter of fact.  I just became motivated to go home for the weekend —-  See how good this works.

Until Next time,  Stay Safe.  We are saying prayers for Ronnie Le Force down here.  I hope all is going well with him.

Talk to you later (L8R),

Kevin James Anthony Breazile

______________________

Kevin J. Breazile

CIA: Customer Experience, Integrated Services Model, and Ariba

—When the Mission seems Impossible, call the CIA!–

Dell Computer Corporation

(512) 728-1527

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 fiftieth letter I wrote.

09/09/02 – Validating Data at Dell

Dear friends from Sooner Plant (and those who only wish they could be there now),

I know it has been two weeks since I have written to you guys.  I have been very busy and haven’t been able to take the time to fill you guys in on what has been going on down here lately.  I am in a phase of my project called “validation”.  This is where I compare my data to what the data is supposed to be.  Then when it isn’t the same, I have to account for the difference.

I have really been using all my creativity to come up with real elaborate reasons why my data doesn’t look like their data.  So, with all my creativity being drained off doing my job, I didn’t have enough left to muster up a letter to all of you.

As you may recall.  I had to give a PowerPoint the Friday before last to some teams about what we are teaching the teachers at the Austin High Schools.  Well.  I did that.  The interesting part about doing that was that a bunch of people came up to me after it was over and asked me two questions.

The first question was:  “Can you teach me how to do that with PowerPoint?” and the second question was: “Why did you have those two particular people together waving at the end?”  —  My answer to the first question was:  “Sure!”,  My answer to the second question was:  “Well, if you don’t know!  I’m not going to tell you!!”

Note to reader:  To read more about the two people waving at the end see the post PowerPoint Final Presentation.

Then this past week, on Friday we had an “Off-site” at Lake Travis with our Vice President.  We did fun things like have water gun fights and water balloon wars, and those sorts of “team-building” activities.  We took a ride around Lake Travis on a boat called “Large Marge The Party Barge”.

To learn more about Lake Travis, you can talk to James Doyle.  I believe he has been scuba diving there a few times.  —  We just went swimming (no scuba diving).  It is a pretty good sized lake.

There was a water slide off the side of the barge, so we could jump off into the lake, and then people would yell “Man over-board” (or “Geek over-board” as the case may be), the guy driving the barge would swing the thing around and go pick the guy up, only to have someone else be hurled off of the upper deck into the lake.

This kept on happening until a group of people threw the driver of the barge in the water and everyone cheered and did some sort of synchronized dancing that reminded me of shoveling coal onto a conveyor belt.  And they had these water guns called “The Super Soaker” with these big backpacks full of water that was powerful enough to blast water in one ear and out the other.

I still hear this squishy sound when I walk.  —  So as you can imagine, when I came home from my hard day at “the office”, the first thing my kids wanted to know was, could they play with the water pistols.

Well, I have spent the weekend recuperating from Friday’s events, and now I am ready to start back to “the ol’ Grind!”  —  Hey!!!  Someone just tossed a nerf football in my cube!!!  Wait ’til I get them back.  —  Gotta run.  Talk to you later……

Your hurried Dell Programmer,

Kevin James Anthony Breazile

______________________

Kevin J. Breazile

CIA: Customer Experience, Integrated Services Model, and Ariba

—When the Mission seems Impossible, call the CIA!–

Dell Computer Corporation

(512) 728-1527

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 forty ninth letter I wrote.

08/28/02 – Humor at Dell

Dear friendly Soonerites,

I heard a story today while I was sitting in my cubicle typing away.  Munavar told Vinod a story about how he and Phat had went to the movies the other night.  They said when they got there, who should they see, but Sumant and Rajarao.

Then I heard Mahesh one cubicle over from mine start chuckling.  He said, “I told you so”.  Then Vinod looked rather stunned, and Munavar walked off with a smile that reminded me of Leroy Godfrey right after he had pulled one over on L. D. Hull.

I thought I would relay this story to you guys so that you will be able to enjoy it as much as I did.  It was a knee-slapper, no doubt.  Somehow I was able to maintain my composure.

Today, I started working on the PowerPoint Presentation that I will be giving on Friday.  One of my teammates kept walking in my cubicle this afternoon to ask me questions, and he kept looking suspiciously at my computer screen and turning his head sideways as if something on the monitor would make more sense if his head was crooked.  I told him it would all be clear on Friday afternoon during our quarterly luncheon.

I’ll let you guys know how it goes next Tuesday.  I’m making this short because it is already late in the day, and the database is extra slow right now…… Hmmmm…..  How did that database get so slow?  Ray?  Do you know?  I wonder if it has the same problem that SAP has.

Note to reader:  To learn more about how I slowed down the SAP database read the post Hitting the Power Plant HR Cardboard Ceiling.

I’ll write later,

Your friend from Austin,

Kevin James Anthony Breazile

______________________

Kevin J. Breazile

CIA: Customer Experience, Integrated Services Model, and Ariba

—When the Mission seems Impossible, call the CIA!–

Dell Computer Corporation

(512) 728-1527

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 forty eighth letter I wrote.

08/23/02 – Record Breaking Dell

Hello Friends from Sooner Plant,

I had a dream the other night (not to sound like Martin Luther King), where someone at the plant had gotten hurt real bad.  I think it was George Clouse.

He was somehow thrown real far when he was being lowered by some kind of rope, and then he fell and banged into something and ended up being tossed about 30 yards where he landed on the concrete close to where I was standing.   I called for help on the radio, but no one came.  (Except maybe some other Dell programmers with long names).

Dreams are weird that way.  —  Anyway, you guys stay safe.  Watch out for each other.

I found Dell’s Safety Mission Statement sitting on a table in the cafeteria on one of those triangular cards that you find in restaurants to show you what is the special that week.  —  Anyway, it starts out like this:  “Dell Computer Corporation is committed to the belief that people are our most important resource.  Dell’s safety policy is to be proactive in maintaining a work environment that protects the health and safety of employees, customers, and the public……”

Then it goes on with a few more sentences about personal responsibility.  —  I thought you guys would like to hear that.  Just recently Dell’s factories reached 2 million man-hours without a major injury.  That’s pretty good considering how fast things are moving in there.

This past week we had an I/T All-Hands meeting.  We all got on buses and went to a “Performing Arts Center” where Randy Mott (our CIO) spent the morning giving us the scoop on how our company is doing.  It was fun watching the videos and stuff.

There was one day during this past summer when we produced 75,000 computers in one day.  —  That’s really making computers fast.  Especially when you consider that there are only 86,400 seconds in a day.  That’s getting pretty close to making one computer every second continuously.  That’s pretty fast.  It’s been calculated that we can do up to 2 computers per second if we had to.

Besides going to the All-Hands meeting, not much happened this week out of the ordinary.  Unless you take into account that I was able to get to work early this morning because I-35 was fairly clear.

There was an accident, but it happened north of where I enter the freeway, so everyone in that direction was stuck, which made it a breeze going to work.  When I saw that the highway was pretty clear, I quickly tuned into the “Traffic Channel” on the radio.

They told me that there had been an accident at the corner of HWY 29 and I-35, and if you were on FM 620 and were planning on going down FM 734, it would be better if you took HWY 183.  And there was some accident on HWY 290 that was causing traffic to back up on I-35.

It still amazes me how every street that has accidents has a number.  I sometimes think that if they quit numbering all these roads, that people would stop having so many accidents.  —  Maybe they’re all looking at the road map as they’re barreling down the road trying to figure out which number they are supposed to turn on to next.

Anyway.  Since this has been a rather normal week, I have been able to get a lot of work done.  I found out today that they are adding some stuff on to my project since I’m so far ahead of schedule.  I’m supposed to learn more about that on Monday.

Next week is going to be the same.  —  Except that next Friday during a “Quarterly Luncheon” with a group of teams, I’m supposed to give a “PowerPoint Presentation” about what we are doing to teach the teachers at the Austin High Schools.   I asked my manager if that’s what they really wanted me to do, and she said that it was.

I asked her if she had heard about my PowerPoint Presentations from the past, and she said that she had.  She said that someone from where I used to work had called the company and told them that I was not to be trusted when giving PowerPoint Presentations, and when they asked whoever it was if they were referring to the PowerPoint Kevin had given at his going-away party, that had already been posted on Dell’s Internal Website as a learning tool for giving uplifting and energizing presentations, the person hung up and didn’t even leave their name.

Somehow I can picture them waving at me now.  —  Let me pull that up real quick. —  Yep.  There it is…  Isn’t that precious?

Note to reader:  To learn more about my final PowerPoint presentation see the post PowerPoint Final Presentation.

Of course, those of you who missed my going-away party don’t have a clue what I’m talking about.  It’s probably better that way.

I hope everything is going well with all of you.  Remember to keep alert.  Don’t get hurt.  Lift with your legs and not with your back.  Watch out for the other guy.  And as the sign says:  “Always Wear Your Gloves”  (That is, when you’re doing switching).  —  I guess, now it’s “Always wear your gloves, your Switching jacket, your protective hood, and good quality work boots and safety glasses.”

I would go on rambling some more safety slogans, but it is Friday afternoon, and if I were to take attendance of the cubes around me now, I would find that there is:  No Venkat, no Murthy, no Srinivasa, no Kotamraju, no Devika, no Radha, no Nanda, or Liming, no Ravi or his other brother Ravi, no Jichuan, or Venu, no Sohan, Ragini or Azeem.  —  Sorry I couldn’t help myself.  That’s just too fun.

Ok.  Ok.  I’m going.  Write to you later.  Let me know how things are going.

Your friendly Dell Programmer from Austin,

Kevin James Anthony Breazile

______________________

Kevin J. Breazile

CIA: Customer Experience, Integrated Services Model, and Ariba

—When the Mission seems Impossible, call the CIA!–

Dell Computer Corporation

(512) 728-1527

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 forty seventh letter I wrote.

08/19/02 – The Monday after at Dell

Dear friends from Sooner Plant,

Well.  I’m back to work after spending the weekend recuperating from my past week.  Last week, if you remember,  on Wednesday we had to go to the Schlitterbahn Water Park and then on Friday afternoon we had a three hour happy hour get together at this big expensive restaurant called “Cool River”.  — I don’t know for sure, but you can probably look up both these places up on the Internet, just to get an idea of what I have had to go through this past week.

I managed to get a sunburn on the top of my head again.  I guess I didn’t put enough sunscreen in my hair.  The water park had a bunch of Tube rides, so I spent the morning with my teammates, team-building as we sat in tubes going down rapids and getting stuck in eddies and twirling around and getting dunked and falling off our tubes, until we finally stopped for lunch.

Then we went to this other area of the park (by taking a shuttle bus), and they had this ride that they call “The Master Blaster”.  It’s like a log ride, except that you go on the ride in a two-man raft.  At different points along the roller-coaster-like ride, you are actually being shot uphill by water being blasted at you.

So your raft goes flying up these tubes as you desperately cling to the handles on the raft, then when you get to the top, you go falling back to earth while twisting and turning through the tubes, all the while, you have to hear your manager that is sitting in front of you in the raft screaming her head off while at the same time trying to maintain her cool composure.

This isn’t like OG&E where they supply you with earplugs.  —  It’s almost as fun as jumping on belt 10 and taking a ride up the “long belt” (which I wouldn’t suggest).

The only time I ever stood on belt 10 was when it had broke in two while it was full of coal, and we had to shovel coal off of it onto belt 11 all the way down the belt in the middle of the summer with the sun beating down on that galvanized oven (back when I was a summer help and I was getting paid $4.24 an hour).

Anyway, we recuperated from that by riding around this “wave” pool on inner tubes until we were so dizzy, we couldn’t remember why we were so tired.

When I was safely back at home, I put aloe vera on all my sunburned spots, which was just about everywhere my bathing suit wasn’t covering.  —  I had put sunblock on, but I think all the water blasting me everywhere, somehow washed it all off.

Then last Friday, our Vice President invited us out to eat hors d’ouevres (Now that’s one word I’m not sure how to spell, I always pronounce it “Horse Doovers”) and drinks.  Of  course I didn’t want to seem unsociable, so I drank a lot of Iced Tea and ate a lot of Horse….well….Snacks.

The snacks were actually more like a meal, so I ate a lot too.  I sat at a table with the Vice President, and my manager came over and told him a bunch of good things about me.  —  I think she did that so that I wouldn’t tell him stories about how she flew screaming through the water tubes a couple of days earlier, and I nearly busted my gut laughing so hard.

I’ll admit, after drinking so much, it was hard driving home.  I had had so much to drink, when I arrived at my house, I had to quickly run inside and head straight for the restroom.  You know how Iced Tea is.  It runs right through you, and when you have to drive across Austin in going home traffic, it is a long way between restrooms.  I made it all right though.

Last week we also had a staff meeting where my manager gave me a $25 gift certificate for coming up with a team slogan.  Of course, I feel like I should split this with Andy Tubbs, Diana Brien, Ben Davis, and Scott Hubbard, since they did help write the 600 other safety slogans that we turned in when we were still considered “electricians”.

We tried so hard to win the yearly safety slogan award so that we could have a pizza for our team.  We never won, because everyone was mad at us for winning the slogan every month.  I’m sure it was all that experience that helped me come up with a slogan for our team.

Note to reader:  To learn more about our team writing safety slogans read the post When Power Plant Competition Turns Terribly Safe.

The slogan down at the bottom of this e-mail isn’t the slogan I turned in.  Our team name is “CIA”, and I made a slogan that said, “CIA, We work behind the scenes so you don’t have to”.  I came up with the one at the bottom of this e-mail when we were at the water park and we were trying to figure out how to convince some of our teammates that the “Soda Straw Tube chute” ride was really an educational ride, not a “supersonic, water blasting, life-threatening event”.  For some reason, this slogan came to mind.

It’s good to hear from you guys, I’ll write later,

Your friend from Dell,

Kevin James Anthony Breazile

______________________

Kevin J. Breazile

CIA: Customer Experience, Integrated Services Model, and Ariba

—When the Mission seems impossible, call the CIA!–

Dell Computer Corporation

(512) 728-1527

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 forty sixth letter I wrote.

08/12/02 – Traffic backing up at Dell

Hello Friends from of old, —  not to be confused with “old” friends,

First of all, I would like to thank Donald Relf for driving all the way down here, just to visit me.  I was so thankful, I took him out for a steak dinner at the Outback Steakhouse.  Oh, and I suggested that since he drove all this way, that he might as well drive a few more miles down to San Antonio to visit his daughter (you know.  Since he was in the neighborhood).

We had a good time discussing all the new and innovative things that have been going on at Sooner plant, (since he had recently visited there to help with the “Towering Surge Bin Inferno”).  He said that Jim Arnold has just done wonders to the place.  He has Lifted up everyone’s spirits and brought back that wonderful family atmosphere that we used to have when Bill Moler and Eldon Waugh were our nurturing benefactors.  —  Well.  He didn’t use those exact words, but that’s how I understood them anyway.

Secondly, You all know that lately I have been driving on Interstate 35 to get to my temporary cubicle 5 miles south of my normal cubicle I call home.  Well, for some reason Fridays seem to be the worst day of the week.  I’m not sure why, but I think it probably has to do with the fact that Saturday and Sunday immediately follow Friday, and that seems to get the drivers in some kind of strange mood.

Anyway.  Last Friday the meaning of the phrase “Traffic is backed-up for miles on North I-35” began to take on a new meaning for me.  — Yes, I realize that it is normal for going-home traffic to slow down to 15 miles-an-hour.  I even realize that sometimes the traffic has to come to a complete stop (though, it’s hard for me to see how anyone can actually have an accident at that speed).

The other day, however, right after we had come to a complete stop, and I was reaching for the lever to pop my trunk to retrieve my ice chest, and change to my tee-shirt that says “Dude, you’re gettin’ a Dell”, the little white tail-lights on the cars in front of me started to turn on.

At first I thought.  Gee.  All those cars have a short in their “back-up” lights, because they are all turning on.  Then I realized that the cars were actually moving backward. —  So my hand moved quickly from the lever for my trunk back to the steering wheel, and my other hand moved over to the gear shift, and my eyes quickly glanced up at the rear-view mirror, as I too shifted into reverse.  I think we were all creeping backward down I-35 at about 2 miles an hour.

I saw the looks of some jealous drivers’ faces that were in the other lane going south, and I think at one point, we were travelling south faster than the southbound lane of I-35.  Those drivers in the other lane were having dreams of leaping over the barricade and getting into one of our lanes.  I could tell by the way they were salivating as they sat on their trunks drinking their refreshments and listening to the radio.

They even have these “supposedly” homeless people that walk down the freeway selling candy to stranded motorists.  It’s rather bizarre.  So you see, now when I hear that traffic is “backed-up” on I-35, I have a whole different vision of what is happening than before.

Thirdly, I have tried desperately to begin my paragraphs with words other than “Anyway”, so that’s why I’m saying “First of all”, and “Secondly” and “Thirdly”.  Anyway,  This is going to be another one of those marathon weeks where I have to go do a bunch of activities that are not exactly in my “job description”.

On Wednesday, I’m supposed to go with my team to a place called “Schlitterbahn”.  It is supposed to be the biggest water park in the world.  —  Yes.  We are doing another Team-builder.

I haven’t received another list from my manager of questions to answer like I did when we went to sit around her pool.  I’m still waiting to see what we are going to do at Schlitterbahn for 10 hours.  —  Then on Friday afternoon, we are going out to a big restaurant with our Vice President and having a “Happy Hour”, only it’s going to be for three hours.  —  So, I have to brush up my “social” skills again, in order to keep from making a fool of myself like I did at the last……Oh, well, that was nothing…..no really, it was nothing.

Fourthly, I can see that it’s time to get back to work.  I hope everything is going well with everyone up there.  It’s good to hear from you,

Your friend,

Kevin James Anthony 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

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 forty fifth letter I wrote.

07/31/02 – The Dell Zone

Dear Sooner Plantians,

Even though it is early in the day, I have already had an interesting morning.  First, I did not have the regular “Freeway Experience”.  I decided to try an alternate route.  —  Yes.  —  Avoid all the traffic, see the country side.  Have a nice relaxing drive to work.

So, instead of turning left at CR 122, I turned right.  Then I turned right on HWY 79, and then another right on HWY 685, and then I turned left on FM 1825 and then after travelling around a number of nameless and numberless roads, I turned right on RM 734, which took me to the building where I am working.

I think it took a little longer than if I had done the “freeway crawl”, but I noticed that after I turned off of HWY 685, that I later re-crossed that road, after winding around some curving roads in the countryside, so I think there may have been a more direct route than the one I took.

The roads here don’t run north and south and east and west like they do in Oklahoma, they just take off in whatever direction the road construction crew thought would take them closest to the nearest diner by lunch time.  —  I think if someone put a Diner out in a field in the middle of no where, some construction crew would probably build a road that goes right by it, then they would give it a name like:  FM 2334 (Remember that FM means Farm to Market.  Now you know why.  I think the same thing must apply to Supermarkets).

The county lines around here don’t run square with the world either.  They all run slanted like Sooner plant.  (If you remember the conversation about how the power plant is 7 degrees off true north, and so is Austin).  Well, I figured out why the counties are all slanted down here.  They line up with the coastline.  I looked at a map of Texas the other day (which down here is almost a weekly requirement like saying the Pledge of Allegiance) and all the counties in this part of Texas are sideways with the coast.  —  It makes sense to me….. Well, it made sense to them anyway.

When I arrived at work, I thought that maybe I had taken a wrong turn on one of those country roads, and ended up in a building that looked exactly like the one where I was supposed to be, only I had entered the Twillight Zone or something.  The parking lot was the same, and the security guard at the front desk looked the same, but when I arrived at my cubicle, I had this eerie feeling that something was not quite right.

I couldn’t place my finger on it right away.  I pulled out my laptop and slid it into the docking station.  I powered it up and went to the end of the hall and poured myself a cup of ice water.  I strolled back to my “guest” cubicle all the while with a feeling that something was different.

I sat in the cubicle and watched my computer booting up, and I looked around.  —  The lights were on.  I could hear the hum of the air-conditioner.  The poster in my cubicle with all the database tables all connected together with lines running everywhere looked the same, but something was different.

It felt just like I used to feel when I walked in the Electric Shop and Unit 1 was off-line.  You know something just isn’t quite right.  So I decided to ask someone about it.  I quietly called out to the surrounding cubicles, “Venkat?”  “Murthy?”  “Srinivasa?”  “Anyone there?”  “Kotamraju?” “Are you there?”  “Devika?” “Radha?  “Anyone?”  “Where is everyone?”

There wasn’t anyone around.  That’s right.  No Nanda, or Liming, no Ravi or his other brother Ravi.  No Jichuan, or Venu, no Sohan, Ragini or Azeem. All the cubicles around me were empty.

My first thought was, “Great, I went to the wrong floor, and there is an identical cube to the one I’ve been using with the same database drawing in it, and no people.”  Then I thought.  — “Is it Saturday?”  No.  Then I thought, “My gosh, they laid off the whole Data Warehouse.”

Not likely, especially since we sold more computers last week than we have ******SECURITY VIOLATION******** THIS PORTION OF THE E-MAIL HAS BEEN DELETED BY DELLSECURE—-IT CONTAINED PROPRIETARY INFORMATION.  ******SECURITY VIOLATION********     So my next thought was that everyone had gone to a meeting and I wasn’t invited.  —  Which is partially right.

It turns out that the Data Warehouse people are all having an “Offsite” today.  You know.  A “Team-builder”.  They had told me that yesterday, but I didn’t remember until I wandered the cubicles for 3 or 4 minutes.  — “Oh Yes, Of course.  A team-builder.”  — “Whew”  That was a relief.

I thought I was catching glimpses of Rod Serling wincing his face at me in the reflection in the windows, and the do-do do-do music from the Twillight Zone was beginning to run through my head.

So my next thought was.  “I know.  I’ll write a letter to you guys.  My old friends from up North.  That will settle me down.”  So that’s what I did.  But you already know that part.

Have a safe day,

Your Friend from do-do do-do Dell!!!

Kevin James Anthony Breazile

______________________

Kevin J. Breazile

Customer Experience / Warranty Cost

Dell Computer Corporation

(512) 728-1527

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 forty fourth letter I wrote.

07/26/02 – Rush hour at Dell

Dear friends from Sooner Plant (and those less fortunate that have to work somewhere else),

Since I have been working at this other building, I have discovered a new culture that exists in Austin, and I suppose in other large cities.  I ran into this “cultural phenomenon” by “accident” the other day.

I was driving home on the freeway (I -35), and there was an accident somewhere down the road, so all the traffic had come to a standstill.  Which meant that instead of driving 15 miles an hour we were driving at 0 miles an hour.  Then I saw people getting out of their cars, and taking off their shoes and putting on flip-flops, and popping their trunks and putting on T-Shirts.

I wondered what was happening at first, but when people all around me started to take coolers out of the trunk of their cars, I finally figured out what was going on.   —  They were having a block party in the middle of the Interstate.

People were all tuned to the same radio station, and they turned their radios up real loud, and were sitting on the hood of their cars drinking, sunbathing and listening to music.  —  And all along, I thought this sort of thing only happened at Dell.  —  Now I know.

I went out and bought a cooler and some flip-flops just for the occasion.  I thought it would be great sitting on the hood of my car playing with my laptop in the middle of the highway. Now when I leave work, I fill my ice chest up with ice.  —  Which reminds me of something……  It’ll come to me I’m sure.

I get the feeling that some people drive around Austin during the day listening to the traffic report to find out where the accidents are, and they head in that direction, just so they can have a party in the middle of the freeway.  If you timed it right, you could be sitting in the middle of a traffic jam approximately 83 percent of the time  —  That’s just a rough estimate of course.

Anyway.  I might be able to tell when there is an accident up ahead by the frantic look in people’s faces as they drive down the highway with the eager look of anticipation as they fly by in their pursuit of “block parties in the highway”.  Come to think of it.  I think most of the people on the Interstate have that look of eagerness.  I almost think that some people are causing accidents on the freeway, just so that all those people behind them can enjoy a relaxing afternoon in the sun.

Well, so far I am about a month ahead of schedule.  I was originally scheduled to finish this project in the middle of October, based on the fact that I hadn’t had any experience writing these kinds of scripts and macros and stuff.  I have finished writing everything and now I’m testing them.

Now they figure I’ll be done around the first part of September.  That is still a month away.  I think I’ll finish before that.  —  They didn’t realize that I wrote a program that would write all my macros and scripts for me.

That was something I learned when I wrote that program for Mike Vogle when he wanted to take “Glink” home with him, so he could fill out his MOs at night.  That was way back in the days when we had dumb terminals and computers and smart, hard working foremen.  Now we have smart hard working computers and …….  well, I think it’s pretty smart to have the computer do the work, so you don’t have to.

Note to reader: to learn more about the the program I wrote for Mike Vogle read the post  Power Plant Men Take the Corporate Mainframe Computer Home.

Next Monday I am going to visit an Austin High School to meet the teachers that I will be teaching to use Microsoft Office.  If you remember, my Vice President signed me up to do volunteer work for the Austin School district.

He had heard about the now famous PowerPoint Presentation from my “going away” party.  As it turns out, I will mainly be teaching teachers.  —  It’s the “training the trainer” idea.

Note to reader:  To learn more about my going away party see the post Power Plant Final Presentation.

Evidently there are some teachers out there that have the attitude that “I’ve been doing it this way for 35 years.  I never had to use a computer before.  Why should I start now?”  —  Imagine that.  That sounds vaguely familiar, but I just can’t place it at the moment.  It’ll come to me I’m sure.

Note to reader:  To learn more about “doing it this way for 35 years”, read the post Bobbin’ Along with Bob Kennedy.

I hope everything is going well with all of you.  Everything is going well with me and my family.  I’ll talk to you later.

Your friendly Dell Programmer,

Kevin James Breazile

______________________

Kevin J. Breazile

Customer Experience / Warranty Cost

Dell Computer Corporation

(512) 728-1527