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 eighth letter I wrote.
7/11/03 – Happy Holidays from Dell
Dear Sooner Plantians et al,
“et al” means “and others”, in case you were wondering.
I hope all of you had a great time during the Fourth of July. I did. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to come out and visit you guys. What, with the “terrorist threat” and all, the Plant Manager or his faithful Equipment Support Supervisor, or the ever vigilant Business Support Supervisor decided it would probably not be safe for me to show up at the plant. — Let me tell you….. I could feel the “Love” all the way down here in Austin.
Those guys just care so much about my health and well-being, it is really touching. — I suppose that if they are so concerned about my health, that all of you guys were probably given the whole day off of work in order to keep you safe also. Who really needs a Safety Task Force with those guys looking after you?
Note to Reader: To learn more about he Safety Task Force see the post Taking Power Plant Safety to Task.
It’s just as well that I couldn’t come out to visit you guys. I was too tired on Thursday morning after driving all the way up there the night before, that I just slept in until 9:00 or so, and spent part of the afternoon sitting in the pool at the Hampton Inn in Stillwater (When I wasn’t in Tulsa picking up my grandmother from the airport). — It’s about time that Stillwater had a decent hotel. That place is really nice.
Well. I did learn something from all that “care and concern” that I received when the “You-know-who”s thought I was going to show up to their safety meeting. I learned that those guys not only care a lot about my safety, but they also care enough to have someone show my letters to them. — That’s interesting to me, since when I asked who wanted to receive these letters, none of them said that they did.
Anyway. It’s just good to know. — By-the-way, I did remove one name from my address list. I thought, “What the heck”, if those guys want to read my letters, let them ask me. I’ll add them to the list. That way they can get their information straight from the programmer’s mouth.
I had to turn in my “Mid-Year” self assessment today. — That’s why I have time right now to write to you guys. — You remember me. — The “360 Assessment Counselor”.
Note to Reader: To learn more about how I was a 360 degree Assessment Counselor at the Power Plant see the post 360 Degrees of Power Plant Grief Counselling.
For me, that stuff doesn’t take very long. — I had a one-on-one meeting with my manager this morning, and he said, “Tell me that story again about how you had to request a clearance 24 hours in advance of the time you had to have the hold tag placed on something.” So I told him.
Then he said, “Tell me that story again about how you used to have Quality Teams, and an Action Team and a whole Quality Process and you guys just gave it all up when your super-intelligent Equipment Support Supervisor took over.” So I told him.
Then he said, “Tell me again how you used to sacrifice pigeons on top of the precipitator in order to get the precipitator to run better.” And I said, “Did I say I did that? Boy I must have really been drunk at our last team-builder.”
He just loves to hear all those great stories about Boiler Rats, and Sparkys and Bubble-Busters. I think we both had sore necks after that meeting from shaking our heads so much in disbelief. I know the sides of my mouth hurt from grinnin’ so much.
Well, maybe the next time I come to town, the whole plant can just go out to “Bad Brad’s” and eat BBQ.
Stay Safe. Talk to you later.
Your friendly Dell Programmer,
Kevin James Anthony Breazile
______________________
Kevin J. Breazile
Programmer/Analyst III
Dell Computer Corporation
(512) 728-1527
Power Plant Men 