Excel as a moral compass...

This afternoon a friend of mine (who is a Computer Engineer) and I were talking about walking away from an underwater mortgage. The discussion included the implications of bankruptcy, credit ratings, how companies look at assets and make similar decisions, and finally the morality of making such a decision. He was specifically going to try to convince a relative that it would be in their best interest to walk away from their mortgage.


Some paraphrasing:
Him: "Banks just look at it like a spreadsheet."
Me: "But I made a commitment to fulfill an obligation, regardless of how they look at it."
Him: "I'm going to make a spreadsheet to show them that it's better to walk away."
... Some moments of silence ...
Him: "I just saved my Excel document... it said I had a minor loss of fidelity."


I thought that was pretty dang funny. Of course, Excel was referring to compatability differences between the Office 2003 and Office 2007 versions of files, but I like to think it was trying to tell us all something more profound.

Sadness

I just got an email about an auction on some old items at my previous company. It's kind of funny, but I still have an emotional attachment to that place. It was my first real job out of school, and I really put my heart into the work there. I'll miss all the friends and coworkers that I came to know while I was there.

I've been at Micron for 3.5 months now, and you wouldn't think it would still affect me. But it does. It even surprised me a little.

To all my ex-Cypress buddies: good luck and Godspeed to you in whatever endeavors you pursue. May the wind always be at your back.

Sweet Sounds

I work in a cube farm.  I think this is one of the most annoying half-measures foisted upon us by our corporate overlords.  behold the sight that greets me when I stand up in my cube:

Now don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy having some personal space and some privacy, but in a cube farm you only get the illusion of space and privacy.  It reminds me of a description I once heard:

“Having the appearance of [personal space and privacy], but lacking the power thereof.”

That’s the problem.  I have somewhere to sit, somewhere to hang up pictures, somewhere to store all my junk, but no real privacy.  I have no door; people can walk in and bother me at will.  I have no (real) walls or ceiling; I hear everything that happens around me with astounding clarity. Even my boss doesn’t have an office, so when we need to have a “real conversation” we need to go find an empty conference room so we aren’t overheard.

Give me an office.  Or at least let me hope for one someday.  There are engineers/managers/directors here that are pretty senior that are still in cubicles.  Granted, they are big cubicles, but that doesn’t solve my problems.  I’d rather have a smaller office that I can close the door and shut out the outside world with all its distractions.  Somewhere that I can paint the walls and hang some real pictures.  Somewhere that I can play some music, albeit not very loudly.

So this brings me to my temporary imperfect solution: I use a white noise machine.

Okay, okay, technically it’s not white noise, per se.  It’s an environmental sound generator.  And it’s not a machine, it’s a computer program.  I like the sound of the ocean breeze along with some light surf.  Since using it, my cube has become a much more enjoyable place.  It feels like coming home (kind of).

Here’s the linkage, freeware, works with XP and Vista:

http://www.relaxingsoftware.com/atmdeluxehome.htm

Good Picture

Here's a good picture.

I enjoy having my own space.  This is the entrance to my cube at Cypress.  The silver nameplate is the standard nameplate for the Boise office, but I maintained possession of my nameplate when I left Micron, so that's the blue one.  (I don't think they have to worry about any other Cameron Stewart's coming to work for them anytime soon).

The CASS on my nameplate is/are my "Cypress Initials" or TLA (Three Letter Acronym).  Mine is actually a "FLA" because they started to run out of TLA's to hand out (They could have just given me "CAM").  FLA's are becoming more common here.  My TLA is my email address (TLA@cypress_dot_com).