Life on the Rails

[Malthus]

Why? Because we are not afraid to sacrifice ourselves to do what needs to done.

"When you go home tell them of us and say: for the company's share value we gave our today" 

[Barrister]

When I met the future Mrs B I had a job that had me on the road about 3 days per week.  I'd always be home at night, but if I had to do a 2 hour drive, then a full day of court, then a two hour drive back, it could be late.

Then I had a job that took me out on the road for 3-4 days about every two months.  I thought that was pretty reasonable (even enjoyed it!) but that was before kids.

Now I've quite deliberately chosen a job that has me in the same town every day.  Part of me would like to head out on the road again, but I know that I would miss my kids, and that professionally it's probably better to be close to the Powers That Be, and not off unseen in rural areas.

[alfred russel]

It is also hard for us single guys to travel for work. Being stuck with a company laptop means no porn while on the road. Also, company filters block most sources of information on the local escort scene.

[Barrister]

It is also hard for us single guys to travel for work. Being stuck with a company laptop means no porn while on the road. Also, company filters block most sources of information on the local escort scene.

Time to invest in a personal laptop.

[Savonarola]

Why? Because we are not afraid to sacrifice ourselves to do what needs to done. And yes,  the separation from family is the hardest part of been deployed.  Last few of your posts have resonated with me, I understand the feeling perfectly.

I feel I have a great deal more appreciation for what people in the service go through from this project; just three weeks away from my wife was hard.  A year seems unimaginably difficult.

[Savonarola]

And, of course, there's dangers in military service that I didn't face.  Bill was in the Air Force before working at GE.  He stationed in the United Kingdom and one day they had all people assigned to aircraft have a footprint taken.  Bill asked them why they needed a footprint, and the person taking them said, "We've found hands don't often survive crashes, but your boots usually do."  The next day Bill's plane got struck by lightening.  All the controls systems went dead and they were losing altitude rapidly.  Bill thought to himself, "Well, at least they'll find my boots, so my family will know."

(He did survive, obviously, he said he got everything on line and the pilot managed to pull up right over the tops of the trees.)

[Savonarola]

This new job in Buffalo means a lot of time away from my family.

I definitely miss my kids.

Yeah, that's rough; it was definitely much harder on people who had kids than it was for me. 

Of the people who stayed to the bitter end of the project; Vinicius and I don't have children, Sofia's daughter is an adult and got married this past March, Bill has the two grandchildren that he's raising and WD has an infant.  Bill and I kept trying to encourage WD to spend more time with his family.  One time we had a Thursday flight home.  We had all worked two 80 hour weeks.  Bill told WD not to show up to the office on Friday, I told WD not to show up to the office on Friday, he showed up to the office on Friday and worked his usual 12 hour day.  Bill tried to tell WD that his son wasn't going to be an infant forever and he'd regret not being there for this period of his son's life, but it made no impact on WD.

[Savonarola]

Why? Because we are not afraid to sacrifice ourselves to do what needs to done.

"When you go home tell them of us and say: for the company's share value we gave our today" 

God for GE, Jeff Immelt and Saint Christopher

[Savonarola]

When I met the future Mrs B I had a job that had me on the road about 3 days per week.  I'd always be home at night, but if I had to do a 2 hour drive, then a full day of court, then a two hour drive back, it could be late.

Then I had a job that took me out on the road for 3-4 days about every two months.  I thought that was pretty reasonable (even enjoyed it!) but that was before kids.

Now I've quite deliberately chosen a job that has me in the same town every day.  Part of me would like to head out on the road again, but I know that I would miss my kids, and that professionally it's probably better to be close to the Powers That Be, and not off unseen in rural areas.

I've never wanted to be at corporate under the assumption that the closer to Caesar the greater to the fear.  I may change my mind on that now that our headquarters are in Paris, rather than Erie Pennsylvania.   

[Savonarola]

It is also hard for us single guys to travel for work. Being stuck with a company laptop means no porn while on the road. Also, company filters block most sources of information on the local escort scene.

We can access the internet and avoid the corporate filters by connecting through a WiFi server but not logging in through the VPN.  This was crucial to us since GE, in its infinite wisdom, blocks all FTP servers. 

[Malthus]

I've never wanted to be at corporate under the assumption that the closer to Caesar the greater to the fear. 

Augustus, or Caligula? That is the question. 

[Barrister]

When I met the future Mrs B I had a job that had me on the road about 3 days per week.  I'd always be home at night, but if I had to do a 2 hour drive, then a full day of court, then a two hour drive back, it could be late.

Then I had a job that took me out on the road for 3-4 days about every two months.  I thought that was pretty reasonable (even enjoyed it!) but that was before kids.

Now I've quite deliberately chosen a job that has me in the same town every day.  Part of me would like to head out on the road again, but I know that I would miss my kids, and that professionally it's probably better to be close to the Powers That Be, and not off unseen in rural areas.

I've never wanted to be at corporate under the assumption that the closer to Caesar the greater to the fear.  I may change my mind on that now that our headquarters are in Paris, rather than Erie Pennsylvania.   

If your goal is to not be bothered by anyone then yes, you want to be as far from head office as possible.  Working in Whitehorse when "head office" was Ottawa was ideal that way.  They couldn't care less what we were doing.

If, however, your goal is to be noticed and promoted you want to be near head office.

[alfred russel]

It is also hard for us single guys to travel for work. Being stuck with a company laptop means no porn while on the road. Also, company filters block most sources of information on the local escort scene.

Time to invest in a personal laptop.

I do have a personal laptop, but it is a pain to travel with two.

You know my workaround? I discovered that while actual porn sites are blocked, if you do an image search with safesearch turned off, you can get naughty pictures to pop up. 

[alfred russel]

I've never wanted to be at corporate under the assumption that the closer to Caesar the greater to the fear.  I may change my mind on that now that our headquarters are in Paris, rather than Erie Pennsylvania.   

Actually, I think this is the opposite of how things work in most companies--if we are talking layoffs or compensation. Execs don't want to layoff the people they work with or in the offices they frequent, the people in satellite offices are more likely to be dismissed. For similar reasons the bonuses tend to be outsized at corporate.

On the other hand, corporate policies have a tendency to actually be implemented at corporate while in the provinces they may get ignored.

[Savonarola]

I've never wanted to be at corporate under the assumption that the closer to Caesar the greater to the fear. 

Augustus, or Caligula? That is the question. 

Jeff Immelt kind of looks like Titus...