Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Cube Farming

OK, I have to admit it: I am really enjoying my job with GE. I am surrounded by geeky techie engineers at GE. In just the past two days, I have been introduced to such cool acronyms as MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure), MSMS (Mission Stores Management System), MSS (Mission Stores System), BCR (Baseline Change Request) and DFR (Data Flight Recorder). While I am playing "Acronym Bingo," little by little I am understanding what the alphabet soup of letters mean. I also was thrilled to see a couple of people using Hewlett-Packard calculators. These people speak my language.

The downside: I am living this dream in a cubicle. There are three floors of cubicles in the building where I
work. Lots of people doing all kinds of hard engineering work, but the majority of us are located in cubicles. Granted, GE does not go low end in cube. These cubes are new and well maintained, but at the end of the day, they are cubes. Most people have added personal touches to their cubes, with a picture of their family or pet or perhaps a college flag. I am still so new at GE that I have yet to add anything to my cube. I want to let the chi flow for a while, and in a week or two I might start adding a few personal touches.

At the end of the day, I am working for a fantastic company, with great people. Each day, so far, that I have met a new co-worker, they have all said to me, "Great to meet you. Welcome to GE. Let me know if I can help you learn more about your job."

Yep, all great people working for a great company.

6 comments:

Lisa said...

Have you seen the movie Office Space?

L.

Paul's Blog said...

Yes, I have. That is why I am looking for the proper cover sheet for my first GE TPS report.

Henry said...

Dear Sven (ret.),

Welcome to the world of the working people. We're glad that you are beginning to understand the nature of the toil and tribulation that faces the Grass Dr and the HR Maven everyday.

I know that you are happy amongst the geeks of GE, but as a graduate of an MIAA school (although certainly not as illustrious as John Calvin's college or one of the highly-regarded military academies) I do expect that your liberal arts education should be put to good use. So, I must offer a small, but signficant edit, to the spelling in your post.

You may, in fact, work in a cubical shaped spaced, so do the HR Maven and I. We enjoy architectural offices with true doors and windows. You, however, are relegated to a cubicle amongst the Geeky Engineers.

Please note that engineers are particularly sensitive to these types of errors. We hope that you do not lose their confidence by continued mis-spelling.

Humbly, I remain,
The Grass Dr (in cahoots with the HR Maven)

Paul's Blog said...

Thanks for the correction. The guilty have been identified and punished accordingly!

I am still trying to understand how you became so knowledgeable about bovine taxonomy!

Henry said...

My allegedly misspent youth was spent on the dairy farm. My uncle had 5 daughters and no sons, so I worked on the farm beginning in 4th grade until I left for college. Among other tasks, I milked cows every afternoon of the week and twice on Sunday. So, I'm unavoidable familiar with cows.

And, in another life, I was an agriculture professor. So, knowledge livestock is also part of my (infrequently used) academic pedigree.

Besides, these are Dutch cows!! That should explain it all.

Paul's Blog said...

It all makes sense to me now. I had no idea that you spent so much time on a dairy farm. As Deirdre would say, "That is hot, dirty man-work."