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 sixteenth letter I wrote.
3/30/05 — Upgrading at Dell
Dear Friends from up North and beyond,
Gee. I was reminded this morning by Steve Blansett that I haven’t written for a while. When I went to look how long, I see that it has been about a month and a half. That must be some kind of record. Don’t think that just because I haven’t written that I haven’t been thinking about you guys — like you really sit around and wonder if I care or not.
Anyway. I’m in the middle of upgrading our timekeeper application to the latest version. Last year when we did this, it was a major project and we had consultants here for about 3 months and we worked and worked in development in order to upgrade this application.
Today there is just me. No consultants. No months of planning. Just me. The consultants keep calling me and asking if I have started the upgrade yet, and I hear them snickering in the background.
According to Kronos “no” company has ever successfully upgraded this product without consultants before. — They want their “big bucks”, and we aren’t going to pay them unless we have to.
So, Everyone is looking at me to do this without any help. — I started the upgrade this morning at 7:00. It is expected to take about 34 hours or so to do this. So….If I still have a job in a few days, you’ll know that everything went well. If not, then…..Well. — I won’t think about that now.
— Oh. You just reminded me of something I should do for this upgrade!…………There. I did it. That will help.
It does help to have spent over 34 hours starting up the precipitator before. Having experienced walking back and forth in the T/R Cabinet Room for 36 hours makes it a little easier to spend only 34 hours upgrading this application.
Oh. Gotta run. The database has been backed up. Time to go to work!!!
Wish me luck.
Kev
______________________
Kevin J. Breazile
Global Financial Services I/T
Dell Inc.
(512) 728-1527
Power Plant Men 