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My Almost-daily Journal |
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| About I love trying out new things, especially when it comes to internet technology. I never really kept a journal, but it's something that I've always wanted to do. Now, everybody will get a chance to look inside my twisted, and somewhat-warped mind.
I've also subscribed to Audio Blog, so a few times a week, I'll leave actual voice blogs. Very cool!XML Newsfeed Previous Posts
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Saturday, November 15, 2003
Program Management With the new management reshuffling at Decoma, things were bound to change. New VP's, new Director's, new Business managers... life in Decoma is definitely different. SVE IT Manager? Who's that? From August '03 - November '03 it was me... Three full months of intense... ummm... stagnation? Boredom? Intellectual-dilution? Sure, I worked... some of the time, but the days of dog-eat-dog in the engineering or program management world were non-existent. I guess I'll call it a three month paid holiday, where it was optional to even come into work. SVE Program Manager? From November '03 - present, it's now me! I'm now a Program Manager for the GM account, currently working on a GM Grand Prix "Special Edition" spring special. Decoma is notorious for "sink or swim". I have never had a position in Decoma that didn't follow that credo. The GM team at Decoma is very nice. Most of the Program Managers are veterans, and several are actually ex-GM employees. I'm probably the youngest one in the group, where everybody else is at least 50, other than on of our plant General Managers, who's probably 40. Of all the OEM's that I've worked with (DaimlerChrysler, Ford, Mopar, and GM), General Motors is, by far, the best! When it comes to an automotive component program, GM program managers, engineers, and buyers actually get involved and don't pass the buck. When they say they're going to do something, they actually do it (many times right there and then via cell phone). They don't pass the buck. They actually work, and demand the same. It's actually quite refreshing to finally be working with an OEM that will actually work, instead of expecting their supplier to do all the work for them. Momentun Shift Going from SVE IT Manager to SVE Program Manager isn't a cake-walk. Right now I'm just trying to understand the GM system, as well as get to know the main players on the team. Add this learning curve to the actual work, and it gets to be a pretty busy week. And the longer days isn't what's affecting me the most right now. On the contrary. It's actually quite nice to be mentally stimulated for a change. The thing that's affecting me is the momentum and inertia shift in workload. Imagine going from doing very little per week, to working NONSTOP for nine hours per day. Nine hours per day of intense labor isn't a problem. Shit, in 2002 I worked an entire summer NONSTOP, without lunches! It's the inertia shock that's taxing my brain: basically going from an hour of intellectual stimulation with 1% corporate responsibility to nine hours of intellectual stimulation (coupled with ten phone calls per hour) with 200% corporate responsibility (Decoma AND SVE are now affected by my actions). They say you should be careful what you wish for. I was wishing that my intellectual stimulation at work would take a hike upward some day. It did that. Hopefully, I'll be able to manage, and not screw up Decoma's and SVE's reputation with GM. Being a program manager for Mopar is a joke. Being a program manager for GM is huge, as the stakes have changed. Decoma Corporate Worries... Let's see... Decoma Corporate had slight psychological problems that I had Decoma content living on my personal server. There's something in Decoma bylaw 1.4.3 that states Decoma content can not be distributed by Decoma employees, blah blah blah, without Decoma Corporate consent. Blah blah blah. I sure feel pretty un-f***'ing appreciated. My server, my personal time, and HOURS/DAYS/WEEKS/MONTHS of catagorizing, sorting, and uploading pictures in a system with automatic navigation, foldering and thumbnailing: http://dinofilias.com/cgi-bin/album/album.pl?album=11sve The only reason I even bothered to put those pictures up, was when I was managing Decoma's SEMA 2002 vehicles, sponsors that were donating content, were asking for pictures and proof-of-concept. I put the pictures on my site, instead of sending ten different suppliers an email-a-week, full of attachments. I just sent them a link and told them to check there often, as pictures were added as vehicles came closer to completion. Then Joel Dawson and I started putting other SEMA vehicles on the site, as well as benchmarking data, and other Decoma project vehicles built at the development center. It was a really nice album that many Decoma employees found useful. It doesn't meet Decoma Corporate guidelines. I don't blame them, but don't treat me like a pro-union mobster trying to bring unions into Decoma's non-union plants! This isn't espionage! This is called sacrifice, charity, and goodwill-- ALL on my dime! Everything I did was in the best-interest of Decoma! So, to cooperate, I backed up the directory, burned it to CD, and sent the CD to our Quality Manager. The pictures are coming off as soon as our VP of IT gives me the green light again. I password protected that directory for now (login: decoma, password: decoma). Sheesh. Miscellaneous & Miniscule... What else has been going on these last few weeks? Let's see... DVD playerI almost ran over my DVD player with my Jeep, since it was having problems playing current DVD's, as well as DTS audio. I decided to spare it and give it to Danielle's household. I bought a new Sony DVD player with a 5-DVD carrosel. It's the best DVD player (non-writable) that Sony offers, and it only cost me $151 at Best Buy! DVD players are cheap! This one reads DVD+/-R/RW (basically all formats). I've been backing up DVD movies with DVD XCopy like it's my job... labels, cases and all! SpeakersMy Klipsh KG 4.2 speakers are finally fixed! I'm almost embarrassed to say that one of my woofers was damaged (i.e. broke) for at least two years. After watching a little Saving Private Ryan in DTS audio, I realized that something was majorly wrong with the audio coming out of the right speakers. The bass was so bad, that the volume had to be taken down drastically to avoid the "popping". I finally decided to take apart the speakers and order a new woofer from Klipsh (or some authorized dealer). What I found wasn't all that bad... my speakers consist of an active and passive woofer. The active woofer is the actual bass woofer, magnet and all. The passive woofer is just a woofer... no magnet, no wires, no nuthin. It was the PASSIVE speaker that was busted! The cone had become unglued to the rear baffle or what the A/V Systems guy called "the spider". It took it to work, and asked one of the Development Center guys if he could glue it back together. A few shots of superglue (literally), and I was back in bidness. I threw the speaker back together, and the sound never felt so good! Rejoice! Now that's a closed life issue that's been on my books for years! Adrian's Visit Adrian the Lemming Slayer has come and gone. Our Aussie friend travelled from another hemisphere to visit with some of the folks and philosophers from df.com. He mainly stayed at Dan Glovak's house, but found that reading books and listening to poetry for days and days got old really quick! My pad offered some intellectually-dwarfing conveniences like cable-TV, telephone, electricity, television, and internet access. Adrian and I didn't do too much philosophizing about REBY/G, string theory, or the complexities of infinate space/time, and we found ourselves playing Grand Theft Auto Vice City, watching movies, or eating out. The two weeks he was here actually went by pretty fast. He's now off to New York, then Germany, then who-knows. I don't know who funds this guy. He must have a trust-fund or something, because he only works when he needs to. He definitely has earned the nickname, "The Transient". Filias.com Peter and I did some server maintenance tonight, eliminating several IP addresses that were not needed, and cleaning up our server a bit. We were supposed to also work on www.Michiganconcretehomes.com, but us Filias' definitely suffer from ADD and EDD (Easily-Distracted Disorder). We played video games, watched a little TV, had some chicken sausages, had a few laughs, etc. We basically both were doing our own thing in his computer room... me writing this, and Peter installing games and apps. I wonder when we'll do the mch.com stuff? Who knows? This stuff we did was better. And that's all for now. Hope everything is going well. I hope everybody has a great Opening Day this morning. Most OEM's have this day off as a holiday (what's this world coming to!?) posted by Dino at 3:25 AM (permanent link) |