-Last week, sitting in on all these meetings, cycling between not knowing "what the fuck is going on," "this is fucking ridiculous," and "oh, I think I get it," one constant thing stuck in my head: "I wonder how long I can do this for." I couldn't shake the feeling that we were all busting our asses for another, far richer man's profit. We're all jumping through hoops to benefit the company, which really means benefit the share holders. Maybe it's just me, but I thought the idea was to create products that benefit the customer. How much can we benefit the customer when everything is being cheaped out? Why are we so intimidated by manager approval? They aren't the ones buying the car. If you give a gift to someone, you hope that the receiver likes it, not the friend that came with you to buy it. I had this feeling last summer too, but after warming up to the group I started to feel down for the cause. Maybe I will again once I get a better grasp on my job, but right now I just feel like the customer is being forgotten and my freedom to be an engineer is severely limited. Today I met a guy that runs a test company / facility that he started himself. He worked for Chrysler at one point for quite a while, but decided to split ties and start up his own company. He seemed not only to be up to speed on technical topics, but also very enthused about the work he does. Talking to him was inspiring...
-"Still have a job? Keep buying foreign!" <--- I've seen that on a couple bumper stickers recently, and I have to say, in one way, that's some of the dumbest shit I have read. Sure, the Big 3 employ a lot of people - myself included - but as consumers, tell me, would you purposely buy a POS if you could get something better? I know I wouldn't. I buy what's good. The best design wins. Additionally, it's funny how that sticker is something the UAW (the union folks... Boeing heads know what's up with them) put out. Oh, and what is one of the biggest problems the Big 3 deal with in trying to turn a profit? The fucking union!! Another interesting fact: Toyota wants to start building facilities in MI. What are all those people bitching about losing a job because people kept buying foreign going to say when Toyota picks them up? Also, in this day and age, it's not like you're buying "American" or "foreign." Chrysler outsources all over the world, as I'm sure many companies in many industries do. Profit is going to go to whoever gets the work, wherever they are. This is business. That means the shareholders want us to make that money even if it means outsourcing to cut costs; and maybe as a side effect the economy will get a little help. Mehh...don't be fooled by what I'm saying. It's not like foreign car companies don't have similar ideals. And obviously if everyone started buying "American" cars there'd be plenty of jobs in Michigan to go around and the economy would start to prosper. It sounds like I'm torn on where I stand, and I am. Being someone that now lives in MI and seeing the shit over here, it's not hard to tell that MI needs the help. However, that's a bigger issue than just the Big 3 and what's happening with them... I'll get into that some other time. I still think the bumper sticker is damn foolish. If I decide to stay with Chrysler, a nice goal would be to contribute to a car that people want to buy, not something they feel obligated to because some schmo that they don't know needs to stay employed. <<< Wow, what a haphazard paragraph; my English teachers are all simultaneously slapping their foreheads right now.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Monday, April 23, 2007
The latest... work and other things.
So it's official, I'm a working man... for how long? Who knows. I'm a little worried that DCX (that's DaimlerChrysler for all you that aren't in the know) is going to sell the "C" and drop funding to my program, in which case I would panic, go into a little more debt, then hopefully bounce back with an engineering job somewhere else. Anyway, here's how things have gone over the first week or so:
Monday - I get to CTC early, not knowing what to expect for a commute. I run into Andy in the hallway and we get to chat for a bit. I think kill time at Omar's desk until the orientation stuff gets started. Usually the group is 15+, but this time it was myself, Rahat (another intern from last summer), this contract-to-permanent employee, and the orientation leader. We talked about the usual orientation things: what work should be like, not to be a racist or sexist, how you should conduct yourself, how bad I am because I drive a Honda, etc. I guess the one useful tidbit from the whole thing was that to work effectively as a company, good personal relationships are key. That's something I agree with, and figured as much already, so luckily the orientation ran short. After signing my life awa... I mean filling out some paperwork, I thought it might be a good idea to pop in the group that took me in for an internship to see how things were going. Unfortunately a few people were sick but I still got to say what's up to some of the folks: Andy, Sean, and Susan (the names mean nothing to random folk reading this, but whatever, this ain't yo' blog foo). I sat down with Sean for a bit and caught up on things. One of these things being the death of two co-workers and friends. It was a tough subject to discuss (the vibe I got last summer was that they were a tight-knit group) but we agreed that work shouldn't consume your life and what's really important is the impact you have on the people you interact with; especially family, friends, etc. That's real shit and it's good to hear that coming from someone that used to be your boss. We talked for a while about other stuff too... where I was living, tips on how to work with people, the importance of retirement (this one makes me feel old yet happy to be making career money), and other random items. It was good seeing some familiar faces on my first day because I knew that like any job, the first few weeks you run around not knowing wtf is going on....
Tuesday - After being picked up by my new boss, Dan, I'm taken to my new work area and introduced to some of the people. I wound up in the wheels and tires department for my MCM (think: cost savings) rotation which is apparently a good thing because it's more involved than other MCM rotations which have you crunching numbers at a desk all day. Not having anything to do yet however, I'm dragged around to a couple meetings throughout the day, infinitely clueless and therefore struggling to stay awake. The group is cool though... Dan seems like a cool boss and Ana is my former roommate Omar's current roommate, she seems like a down ass chick and quite helpful with getting me broken in.
Wednesday - Probably the highlight of today was a "tech club" meeting. Some guy from the design office went to SEMA to check out current wheel trends. His observations were that multi-piece wheels were in style, as with the "bling finish" on the lips of wheels, Rota's tuner-style wheels, and various machined / polished finishes. I had a hard time not laughing because some of the things he pointed out have been timeless styles for years (...the Racing Harts on my car right now are 2-piece with a "bling lip") or were just outright ridiculous. I understand the need to report on everything there, but I got a good bit of silent chuckling from the pictures on his powerpoint presentation. It's not his fault though, people are releasing some dumb ass shit these days.
Thursday - Either this day or the day before, I started doing work with Ana and kinda getting a feel for how things operate in wheels and tires. So now I'm starting to feel less lost...
Friday - Kinda getting more work to do and struggling to understand some of the more technical things behind the job. Dan gave me a link earlier in the week to a database we've got so I was able to read up on some of the more popular issues around our wheels and tires. Most of my personal knowledge comes from being a car guy, so it was good to compare to how these guys see things. I also got to chat with Pete, another guy from last summer that I worked pretty closely with. We'll be hopefully grabbing lunch or a beer in the future... if I can get some checks rolling, haha.
Today (Monday) - Met my executive sponsor, Richard, who sounds like a really good dude. It turns out he knows Leonard, Tom, and Keefe (the UW recruiters)... small world. Anyway, the guy was very interested in being able to pass on any advice that he could and forming a very informal mentor-type setup. A couple signs that this guy is down to help: he gave me his home phone and address, is the type of guy that will tell you what worked for him but won't say that his methods are the only right way, and let me know that if I have any issues, I can ask him for advice without worrying about him narcing on me. Sweet. Oh, I also met Brett, the guy listed as my supervisor on my welcome packet who's actually Dan's boss. It turns out things work better with the way they choose to place CIE's. Sounds like a cool dude.
So that's the intro to the working world for me... more to come on my thoughts about working here and working in general <-- soon to come!
Oh, and if anyone actually reads this tripe and cares to say something, you don't need a blogspot account to leave a comment... I've got it set up so anyone can. Later everyone.
Monday - I get to CTC early, not knowing what to expect for a commute. I run into Andy in the hallway and we get to chat for a bit. I think kill time at Omar's desk until the orientation stuff gets started. Usually the group is 15+, but this time it was myself, Rahat (another intern from last summer), this contract-to-permanent employee, and the orientation leader. We talked about the usual orientation things: what work should be like, not to be a racist or sexist, how you should conduct yourself, how bad I am because I drive a Honda, etc. I guess the one useful tidbit from the whole thing was that to work effectively as a company, good personal relationships are key. That's something I agree with, and figured as much already, so luckily the orientation ran short. After signing my life awa... I mean filling out some paperwork, I thought it might be a good idea to pop in the group that took me in for an internship to see how things were going. Unfortunately a few people were sick but I still got to say what's up to some of the folks: Andy, Sean, and Susan (the names mean nothing to random folk reading this, but whatever, this ain't yo' blog foo). I sat down with Sean for a bit and caught up on things. One of these things being the death of two co-workers and friends. It was a tough subject to discuss (the vibe I got last summer was that they were a tight-knit group) but we agreed that work shouldn't consume your life and what's really important is the impact you have on the people you interact with; especially family, friends, etc. That's real shit and it's good to hear that coming from someone that used to be your boss. We talked for a while about other stuff too... where I was living, tips on how to work with people, the importance of retirement (this one makes me feel old yet happy to be making career money), and other random items. It was good seeing some familiar faces on my first day because I knew that like any job, the first few weeks you run around not knowing wtf is going on....
Tuesday - After being picked up by my new boss, Dan, I'm taken to my new work area and introduced to some of the people. I wound up in the wheels and tires department for my MCM (think: cost savings) rotation which is apparently a good thing because it's more involved than other MCM rotations which have you crunching numbers at a desk all day. Not having anything to do yet however, I'm dragged around to a couple meetings throughout the day, infinitely clueless and therefore struggling to stay awake. The group is cool though... Dan seems like a cool boss and Ana is my former roommate Omar's current roommate, she seems like a down ass chick and quite helpful with getting me broken in.
Wednesday - Probably the highlight of today was a "tech club" meeting. Some guy from the design office went to SEMA to check out current wheel trends. His observations were that multi-piece wheels were in style, as with the "bling finish" on the lips of wheels, Rota's tuner-style wheels, and various machined / polished finishes. I had a hard time not laughing because some of the things he pointed out have been timeless styles for years (...the Racing Harts on my car right now are 2-piece with a "bling lip") or were just outright ridiculous. I understand the need to report on everything there, but I got a good bit of silent chuckling from the pictures on his powerpoint presentation. It's not his fault though, people are releasing some dumb ass shit these days.
Thursday - Either this day or the day before, I started doing work with Ana and kinda getting a feel for how things operate in wheels and tires. So now I'm starting to feel less lost...
Friday - Kinda getting more work to do and struggling to understand some of the more technical things behind the job. Dan gave me a link earlier in the week to a database we've got so I was able to read up on some of the more popular issues around our wheels and tires. Most of my personal knowledge comes from being a car guy, so it was good to compare to how these guys see things. I also got to chat with Pete, another guy from last summer that I worked pretty closely with. We'll be hopefully grabbing lunch or a beer in the future... if I can get some checks rolling, haha.
Today (Monday) - Met my executive sponsor, Richard, who sounds like a really good dude. It turns out he knows Leonard, Tom, and Keefe (the UW recruiters)... small world. Anyway, the guy was very interested in being able to pass on any advice that he could and forming a very informal mentor-type setup. A couple signs that this guy is down to help: he gave me his home phone and address, is the type of guy that will tell you what worked for him but won't say that his methods are the only right way, and let me know that if I have any issues, I can ask him for advice without worrying about him narcing on me. Sweet. Oh, I also met Brett, the guy listed as my supervisor on my welcome packet who's actually Dan's boss. It turns out things work better with the way they choose to place CIE's. Sounds like a cool dude.
So that's the intro to the working world for me... more to come on my thoughts about working here and working in general <-- soon to come!
Oh, and if anyone actually reads this tripe and cares to say something, you don't need a blogspot account to leave a comment... I've got it set up so anyone can. Later everyone.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
The move, for the move.
Hello errr'one that doesn't have anything better to do (mainly myself). This is the new home of the blog. Why? Mainly the better format and it's in cahoot's with gmail, my e-mail account. It all works out. Plus I figured it was time for a change. Shit, everything else seems to be changing these days. Haha. Later y'all.
Oh btw, here's a link back to the old xangerrrrr - http://xanga.com/alfonsotan
...weird shit, have to upload a picture to the blog itself to have it hosted as a profile pic, so nevermind this:
Oh btw, here's a link back to the old xangerrrrr - http://xanga.com/alfonsotan
...weird shit, have to upload a picture to the blog itself to have it hosted as a profile pic, so nevermind this:
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