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 seventy fifth letter I wrote.
5/30/03 – Dell Interns and Stuff
Dear Friends from Sooner Plant and others,
It has been brought to my attention that I haven’t written a letter in a few weeks…. Well. When I looked back at my “Networking” folder I can see that it has been 3 whole weeks since I have written a letter to you guys. Gee…. Has it been that long? Well. It seems like just yesterday.
It’s interesting how time flies when you’re having….. Now what is that word?……. Oh yeah, “when you’re having fun.” Well. Before I tell you about my day, I would like to congratulate you guys on an Accident Free Overhaul. (It was accident free wasn’t it?).
I hear that Scott Hubbard and Charles Foster did a great job on the Precipitator. Everyone should give them “High Fives” for their great work. I know from the past that when the Precipitator is working well, no one ever gives any recognition for that, but when it’s fouling up real bad, it’s all the Electrician’s fault. — Good job you guys!!!!
Well (That’s a deep subject). I now have my own personal “Summer Intern”. I’m the only one in my organization that has an intern and everyone is trying to figure out how come I get one and no one else. So I just say, “Well, did you fill out a requisition for one?”
No. Not really. I don’t know why I got one, but I’ve been teaching him all week how to program in VB, VBScript, ASP, Oracle, and HTML. He doesn’t have any of these skills, and he’s going to need them if he’s going to follow me around this summer. I’ll let you know if we make an “Intern video” of all the “brilliant ideas” he comes up with during the summer (like those interns on the commercials).
Well. We were going to have a team builder with our group, and our Vice President told us that he would rather we have one big team-builder with everyone in his group, so we are combining the whole thing and having some sort of “All-Hands” meeting at some place called “Fiesta Ranch” in 3 weeks. (So instead our 2nd level manager gave us a half day off last Friday, which is why I didn’t write to you guys last week).
This isn’t the same place we went to last summer. That was called, “Reunion Ranch”. — Notice how a lot of places down here have the word “Ranch” in them? Isn’t that interesting? I suppose that we should expect horses and cowboys and pasture when we show up. — If I remember correctly, Reunion Ranch didn’t have any horses there when we went there last summer.
I haven’t heard anything about “Fiesta Ranch,” where we are going next. My guess is that it won’t be a ranch at all. — It’s like these roads down here that are called “Ranch Roads” (Or “Ranch to Market” roads). These roads are right in the middle of town and there isn’t a ranch anywhere in sight. I think it gives these guys a feeling that they are out on the prairie chewin’ on a piece of hay or something when they drive down “Ranch Road 620”.
They might say something to their friend while they are sipping their coffee at Starbucks like this, “Hey Luke. How’s about us takin’ a ride down the ol’ Ranch Road an’ see iffin’ we can catch us a sight of some coyotes (pronounced “kye – oats”)? Then maybe we can drive across the north 40 (Which is a highway, not a bunch of acres on a ranch) and catch us a bite ta eat at “Cheddars”, (which is a restaurant like “Chili’s” not some greasy spoon run by an ancient hispanic character that has only one eye and a game leg — like it sounds).
They talk like that because they want to believe that they are living in the “Old West” and not sitting in a Starbucks getting ready to get on the highway during going home traffic with a million other cars in a large metropolis in south Texas.
Well. — You guys know what I’m talking about. You work at Sooner Plant. — Yes. That place out in the middle of no where where you have to make your own lake and purify your own water to drink, and you have to stand out there in all sorts of weather doing your “chores”. And you have to bail the hay out in the pasture for Ken Scott to come and steal. And you have to chew on a piece of hay to keep from saying things to upper management that you know you would like to say, but it just wouldn’t get you anywhere if you did.
Sooner Plant. The place where the workers at the other plants do not want to go on an overhaul in the winter because there is nothing between Sooner Plant and the 60 mile an hour wind blowing down from the Rocky Mountains (brrrr. I’m getting chills just thinking about it).
Well. Keep up the good work at Sooner. I’ll write to you guys later. Let me know how things are going. — Say. I noticed that “Richard Maxwell’s” e-mail is no longer valid. — He wrote me and told me that he was going out in the Texas Panhandle to work for some company that was going to pay him more money.
Have a great week,
Your friendly Dell Programmer,
Kevin James Anthony Breazile
______________________
Kevin J. Breazile
Programmer/Analyst III
Dell Computer Corporation
(512) 728-1527
Power Plant Men 