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 one hundred and eighth letter I wrote.
10/29/04 – Support Rat at Dell
Sooner Plantians and friends from Afar,
I know I just wrote the other day. And I know a lot has happened since then when I was asking what happened to the doughnut man. And I am very sad for a person that I always considered a good friend, Gary Morris.
I just had to write today and let you guys know what I found in my cubicle this morning. When I opened my cabinet a few minutes ago to change CDs in my laptop so that I could listen to Gregorian Chants instead of The Four Seasons (by Vivaldi), I found that someone had put a rubber rat with a grimacing face in my cabinet all dressed up for Halloween.
The rat is about 8 inches standing up on its hind legs. It is wearing a little felt wizard hat with a spider on it, and a little shawl with witches and stars on it and it’s tied together with a little red bow. Pinned on it’s chest is a miniature Dell badge of the person that this rat was first given to (so I have found out). Around the rat’s waist is an orange ribbon that is tied to a little pumpkin bag like the rat is going trick-or-treating.
Inside the bag is a packet of picante sauce from Whataburger. On one of the ears, the rat has an earring that is holding the earplug of a little Dell radio strapped to the orange ribbon around his waste. The Dell Radio is blue and says “Dell Memory” on the side.
It is actually a real radio that has a button on the side that you can push which turns on a little teeny flashlight (which would be great if you are in your storm shelter and you need to see something without going blind by turning on a ‘real’ flashlight’. — You guys in Oklahoma know what I’m talking about, but I don’t have a storm shelter down here).
So, why do I bother to tell you guys about this? The guy across the aisle from me knew about this rat, though it was the first time I had ever seen it. He said that it is given to “Support Rats”. And now that I’m in support, I was fair game to receive The “Support Rat”.
Now some of you are already nodding your heads (and I’m not talking about you guys that are nodding off to sleep because you fail to see the relevance of all this). Charles Foster, Scott Hubbard and I always worked on the Precipitator during overhaul while all you guys that worked in the boiler used to get all kinds of stickers and recognition by obtaining the extinguished honor of being called a “Boiler Rat”.
Note to Reader: To learn more about Boiler Rats, read the post: Sky Climbing in the Dark with Power Plant Boiler Rats.
Charles, Scott and I never had that privilege, and I always felt like we were being left out of that special club only because we were working on plates and wires while most of you guys were lucky enough to be in the boiler repairing boiler tubes and riding up and down on sky-climbers.
So when it was explained to me that I was given the honor of being the “Support Rat”, you can imagine how hard it was to fight back the tears that were welling up in my eyes. — Someone really does care about us guys after all!!
I knew you would want to hear about this so that it would brighten up your day as it has mine.
Your friendly Dell Programmer,
Kevin James Anthony Breazile
______________________
Kevin J. Breazile
Global Financial Services I/T
Dell Inc.
(512) 728-1527
Power Plant Men 