Letters to the Power Plant #42 — Moving Around Dell

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 second letter I wrote.

07/12/02 – Moving around Dell

Hello friends from even more North than last week,

Yes.  This week I have moved to a new building.  —  It is only temporary, but for now, I must brave the morning traffic on I-35 for at least 4 or 5 miles in order to go to work in another Dell Shangri La.  —  My partner Marvin and I have moved down south about 5 miles to another building for a few weeks in order to be close to the DBAs.  (That stands for DataBase Administrators).  That way when we have questions and stuff, they will be real close to come to our assistance.

So I have moved into a new guest cubicle in this other building.  —  It is a little like OG&E when you have to go to another plant to work, except that it’s not so far, and I still get to go home at night, and I don’t get a per-deum.

One thing I do get to do, is I get to work with a whole lot of new people that I didn’t know until this week.  —  Also, like OG&E, when you go to work at other plants, you realize that it’s like a whole other company at those other places.  —  At Dell, it’s kind of like that.

Except at Dell, it’s like a whole other “Country”.  —  For instance, the people that are in the cubicles around me, have last names like this (and I’m not making these up):  Danda, Srivangipuram, Jasti, Satish, Raaman, Shao, Challagolla, Singh, Kasaram, Liu, Khanjee, Pothukuchy, Pokkula, Kunala, Srimattirumalala, and Ahmed.

Their first names are a lot easier to remember than their last names.  They go like this:  Azeem, Radha, Murthy, Venu, Sohan, Jichuan, Srinivasa, 2 guys named Ravi, Ragini, Liming, Devika, Mahesh, Kotamraju, Nanda and Venkat.

I get the impression that a certain group of people with long names like to be DBAs, or at least, Data Warehouse Developers. —  And this is just the two rows of cubicles where I am.  — It’s worth the extra 10 minute drive to work in the morning, just to learn all those extra names.

I have spent the week programming away.  We were planning on going to see Men In Black 2 this week as a team builder, but we decided against that.  So instead we will probably be going out on a lake in our manager’s boat in a month or so after the flood waters subside.

Some members of our team felt that going to see a movie isn’t really an optimum Team-building experience because you just sit there in the dark watching a movie and eating popcorn and drinking cokes, and you don’t really interact with each other.  —  At least on a boat, we can play tricks on each other, and push each other in the water, and ski, and detach the rope, and all sorts of optimum team-building activities like that.

Besides, when everyone is wearing a swimming suit, you kind of naturally get in the team-building spirit anyway.  —  And I know you are all wondering, so I’ll tell you right now.  —  Yes.  I will put my laptop in a plastic bag to keep it dry.  — Of course.

I hope all of you had a wonderful week,

I’ll write later,

Your Friend,

Kevin James Anthony Breazile

______________________

Kevin J. Breazile

Customer Experience / Warranty Cost

Dell Computer Corporation

(512) 728-1527