Big Blue and Me

Today is my last day working at our IBM office in Fishkill, NY. It has been a great week and it has been wonderful seeing friends I met when I worked at our factory and from previous trips here. I have been working nights, from 6:00PM until 6:00AM. It hasn't been too bad with the day sleeping and I have managed to stay awake all night. As I mentioned in a previous post, the eating schedule is the biggest disruption. Going to a greasy diner at 2:30 in the morning and eating lunch is a bit of a change for me. I like being up here in the mountains though. It has been very chilly here at night. The leaves look like they are just about ready to start changing. I'll bet that in a month, it will be really beautiful here.

The work here at IBM been good. As usual, it hasn' t been too busy and I feel like I have made some contributions to the team as well as learning some new things. One of the best parts of working here is that their cleanroom protocol is not as stringent as my location in VA. It still feels like I'm wearing a trashbag when I have to suit-up, but as least I don't have to wear something over my face or eyes (very stylish). Another great part about this trip was that I got a new IBM photo ID. My old one was pretty much about a hundred times worse than the worst drivers lisence photo you have ever had. Luckily they had to shred my old one. The new badge I got looks pretty good and this one actually is coded to work on all the access doors I have to go through. Their factory is extremely compartmentalized and all the doors are locked. So in the past I have had to either follow people around or stand around, waiting for someone to come along while trying not to look too conspicuous.





Of course, the week has not been without some strange events. There was a coroners/medical investigators conference at the hotel I've been staying at. I was working down in the lounge/bar area yesterday afternoon and met a bunch of these guys. For some reason, they thought I was some new guy attending their little convention which led into some pretty interesting conversation. By the way, most of them do not like the show CSI........


The other really strange thing that happened, occured on my first night at work. My friend Chuck and I decided to head out to Dunkin D for a quick coffee break around midnight. It was my turn to drive and as I pulled out of the parking lot, this young chinese girl comes running across the parking lot, waving her arms frantically. So, we think there is some sort of emergency and I quickly stop the car and jump out. Did I ever mention I love interacting with people from different cultures? This chinese girl comes running over to us and simply tells us in fairly broken english that she called a cab an hour ago and it never came. Then she more or less asks if we can drive her to her hotel and proceeds to get in the back seat before I say ok. Our workplace is in a large gated IBM complex, so we know she is probably there for work as well, but I was still a little nervous about the whole thing. But then we take off for her hotel which was not very close and definitely out of our way. Great conversation though. Chinese people often take on American first names for business reasons. This girl's name was Jessica. She told us her real chinese name but I can't even remember it. I find one of the best conversations with a chinese person is finding out how they decided on their particular American name. She had a good story. But this poor girl had just arrived two days ago from China, had just started her first job out of college, no drivers lisence, etc. and she worked for one of our competetitors! We got her safely to her hotel and she blurted out a thanks and hopped out before we could tell her that flagging people down in America and jumping into a car with two male strangers at midnight is probably a monumentally bad idea.........


So this is my last evening. Luckily I only am working till midnight. Then we're going to dinner at the I-84 diner before I head south. I'll be home in the morning and then we're going to take Colin to a farm/tractor show for the day in Centerville. The show is called "Field Day of the Past". It's really neat and Colin has a thing for tractors and farm equipment, so he will pretty much be beside himself with excitement for a few hours, which is kinda fun to watch. After the show we are heading off on a weeklong vacation up in the mountains. Since I'm driving all night to get home, I expect I will be like a zombie at this point and Daleen is going to get to drive us there. I'm ready for a week away.... again.