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 ninety third letter I wrote.
1/15/04 – Time at Dell
Dear Friends from up North,
I hope all is going well with you guys. I learned that Alex Taybah has also left the building! Gee. People are dropping out like flies up there. What’s the deal?
I often wonder why people would want to leave Sooner Plant when it is led by such cheerful and caring individuals. There must be something else going on up there that I’m not thinking about. — Oh wait!! How about this….. (Since this might be one of the reasons I left)……
After working in a state of serene peacefulness for so many years one starts to feel guilty that other Oklahomans are not able to feel such love an affection from their workplace, so you begin to realize that it just isn’t fair, and you really want others to be able to experience the “Sooner Aura” of perpetual magnificence from the leadership. So you get this overwhelming urge to leave so someone else can take your place!!! That’s it!! Isn’t it?
Well. This week the big project that I’ve been working on has finally gone live. It was a real big thing. We had fliers put on everyone’s desk. Manufacturing was told that they couldn’t use the time clocks for about an hour.
Everyone started using it on Monday morning, and away it went!!! It was pretty exciting since I have been so engrossed in this project for the last several months. — We are in what is called the “Stabilization Phase” right now. That means that I sit here and watch it run and make sure everything is working the way it is supposed to work. So far that has been going well.
It looks like I might get an “Atta Boy” from this project. Actually, the other day, I think my manager gave me the Dell version of an Atta Boy already. He said something like. “Uh Kevin, I see that Kronos Project went well. That’s good. Here’s a couple of other projects I would like for you to start working on”. — Whoo Hoo!!! That’s an “Atta Boy” if I ever saw one!!!! — I’m just kidding of course.
I think we are all going to go out to some Restaurant that overlooks Travis Lake and celebrate this in a few weeks. — My manager told me I should take Friday off just to have a vacation day. — I thanked him and told him I thought I ought to wait a couple of more weeks just to make sure everything goes well during the next Payroll in two weeks.
So Timekeeping is now being performed in a much more efficient and streamlined way at Dell. Isn’t that great? Payroll is happy. Finance is happy. — Those people who have been pretending to work more hours than they really were — They aren’t too thrilled, because now they won’t be able to cheat the system so easily.
Well. It is the end of the day, and I think I’m going to go home at the regular time today, so I’d better say good night for now. — Let me know how things are going with you guys.
Your friendly Dell Programmer,
Kevin James Anthony Breazile
______________________
Kevin J. Breazile
Programmer/Analyst III
Dell Inc.
(512) 728-1527
Power Plant Men 