Mardi Gras in the Office

I opted to work from home this week instead of going to Nashville. Not all of the team was to be present and every one of my meetings was to be a conference call anyway.... The downside is that because of the time difference some of my conference calls don't end until 7:30 PM. This is all the more reason to work from home rather than drive to the office. On Tuesday, I missed out on the office Mardi Gras party where everyone was supposed to wear masks... here is a picture that they sent me... "The Edge" is what we now call the collaboration area where around 100 of us sit together at huge tables in a giant room.

A Wild Night at the Olive Garden

"Sri", one of our consultants is getting married in India next month... In Huntington last month, we told him that we should throw him a bachelor's party. Because he is very conservative, we thought he'd shy away from the idea. Instead, he suggested we do so on February 10th which is also his birthday. Now, if you'll recall Sri had never had alcohol until we corrupted him on our Huntington trip... In Nashville, on February 10th, he had quite a bit to drink. He kept his cool the entire time, but I couldn't help feel a little guilty that we had corrupted him. Imagine if he became an alcoholic and we were the gateway.... He made it all of the way through college without drinking and then he met us... Anyways, Sri's a vegetarian so we started the night with a hardy meal at the Olive Garden. For a veggie-head, pasta beats salad any day... Afterwards, we had the traditional American bachelor's party. And, we made it home well before midnight... a promise that we made Sri.

This week we're in Kentucky

Finally, I get to bring some of our project team back home. However, they couldn't have chosen a worse time to visit. This week, Lexington experienced an ice storm which has cut off power to most of the city. The plant had power (pictured above) but very few locals showed up to work. We completed our objectives earlier than expected.

My home has no power, and there is a big tree down in my front yard. The power company says that it will be two weeks before my street is turned on so I have moved the family to my parent's house in Northern, Kentucky. There, we'll wait out the storm. I'm working from their house this Friday.

Workshop in Huntington, Indiana

Today, I'm in Huntington, Indiana. This morning, my co-workers, who were staying at a different hotel, spent 40 minutes driving through the snow on the one mile trip from their hotel to work. I'm not sure why it took them so long but they say that they got stuck twice.

On this trip, I'm travelling with Enrique from Mexico, Srineva from India (living in Chicago), Rohit from India, and Anoukone from Indiana. We wrapped up our workshop in the afternoon. Enrique had never seen snow before so we thought it'd be nice to take him sledding. We ran to the local General Dollar store and bought 5 sleds... Yes Indiana is pretty flat, but there is one big hill in a park in the center of town....


It's a shame that Enrique, the Mexican, has missed out on so many happy youthful days playing in the snow... but, I guess at 28 he's still not too old to have a little fun.

After sledding, Anoukon brushed us off to avoid excess snow in the rental car...

After sledding, we went out for dinner at a Chinese buffet followed by drinks at the local buffalo wing place....

Srineva, our consultant is 25 but has never let alcohol touch his lips. We delighted in corrupting him. This is a picture of his first time ever drinking alcohol.

So, all in all po-dunk Huntington has turned out to be a really fund trip. I guess it doesn't really matter where you go if you make your own fun!

Day 3 in Monterrey, Mexico

Last night, we had a wonderful low-carb meal at one of the most famous restaurants in Monterrey, El Rey del Cabrito (The Goat King). This restaurant's speciality is cabrito (baby goat). And yes, we ate baby goat. It was greasy and flavorful, like a cross between lamb and pork. There were essentially no side dishes, just a plate of peppers and a few garnishes of boiled broccoli and cauliflower... As an appetizer before the goat, we had "dried shredded meat" (apparently beef). This restaurant is a low-carber's dream. My camera batteries were dead but co-workers took pictures. The staff let us into the kitchen and my buddies took a wonderful picture of myself surrounded by baby goats on sticks roasting over open coals.
Breakfast at the hotel was eggs with warm spicy salsa and a small side of refried beans.

Lunch today, at the office was a large hamburger. I gave away the fries and stripped away the bun. There was plenty of meat, avocado, and cheese to keep me happy.

It is currently after 9:00 PM and we haven't left the office. Yes, I'm posting from work as my ability to attention in the meeting is beginning to wane. They ordered pizza. The only non-pizza items were salads. A no-no in Mexico. But, everyone assured me that Monterrey food and water is not as risky as other parts of Mexico and that eating their lettuce wasn't all that dangerous. So, I ordered a chicken Caesar salad. About half way through the salad, I found a rat turd. Argh!!! This sucks. I just hope I don't get sick. I didn't make a scene... I just quietly threw my salad in the trash and ate the cheese off of a few slices of pizza.

It's past 10:00 PM my home time. I'm ready to get the heck out of here but it looks like we may be here for a while...

I'll be going home tomorrow arriving on the last plane into Lexington, Kentucky. I'd love to see more of Monterrey but am getting rather tired of the conference room inside the plant.

Day 2 in Monterrey

Today is the second day at the Monterrey plant in Mexico. For some unknown reason, were were greeted at the front door by a bunch of clowns...

I think it had something to do with safety and health awareness.

Off for the holidays...

I'm enjoying two weeks at home over the holidays! January will be a busy month. On the 5th, I leave for Monterrey, Mexico. After that, it's off to po-dunk Huntington, Indiana. And then back to Nashville. The last week of January I will be working close to home at the Lexington plant.

Project coming along.

I've not posted in quite a while. It just seems that Nashville is not exciting as the rest of the world. But, I guess that's just a matter of perspective. I will be working in Nashville 3 weeks a month for the next year. I might take a couple trips to Mexico but will not likely be going back to France any time soon.

We have just added about 50 new people to the project team. These people are only on board until the first North American deployment, one year from now. Our office in Nashville has been re-arranged into one giant room with about a dozen large tables. We no longer have cubicles to work in. They say that this is to foster collaboration but really its the only way they could fit over a hundred people into the space available. The project is finally picking up some speed now. Next week, we begin conducting "business transformation" workshops. Essentially it's a fit analysis to insure that the core solution can work in North America.

As for the social life while in Nashville, it's rather droll. We wrap up work around 6:30 PM central time and meet up at the hotel around 7:00. Everyone groups up and heads out to eat. Mostly we go to large chain restaurants. Occasionally we venture downtown. Rarely we hit the bar strip in country music city USA. Next time perhaps I'll bring back pictures.

North American Team in Nashville, Tennessee

For the remainder of the year, I expect to be in Nashville probably 4 days a week, two weeks a month. This week in Nashville was rather dull. Meetings during the day consisted of topics such as our documenting our current reverse logistics (returns) processes, mapping master data, and identifying potential system interfaces. Between the boring content and my cold medicine, it was difficult to stay focused.

The first night, a large group of us went to Hooters. I've not been to Hooters in many years. Most of the guys in our group were quite rude and crude to our waitress. It was somewhat embarrassing. But at the same time, I think anyone who wants to be a waiter at Hooters is just begging to be hit on and picked on. It sort of goes with the territory & the uniform.

On day two a different group of us went downtown to the Flying Saucer. This is a huge bar with over 200 beers on tap. While there, I ate some white goat cheese pizza and had a few obscure beers.

Mark (Florida), Daron (Kentucky), and Cedric (France) at Nashville's Flying Saucer

On day three we went to a restaurant called Caney Fork fish camp. The atmosphere there is quite unique. It's rustic with stuffed animals everywhere you look. These animals range from a large moose to an assortment of coyotes and foxes. There was also a live blue grass band. I didn't think to bring my camera but could have taken some interesting photos if I had. My meal consisted of wonderful corn fritters, fried pickles, fried catfish, white beans with ham, and hush puppies. Yum, yum.

Tijuana Trip

The business trip to Tijuana went great. The Mexicans were very intelligent, knowledgeable, and excited about working with us. Mission accomplished.

Apparently, Northern Mexico is no longer safe for American business men and tourists. Our driver told me that tourism is down 90% as compared to previous years and that the government is desperate to get tourists back into Mexico.

Due to security concerns, our company required us to stay in a hotel in San Diego, California and to commute daily. We were provided with a driver and an armored vehicle. The first day, the car was a modified Jeep Cherokee. It had bullet proof glass and armored plates inside the door panels. It looked like any other Jeep Cherokee but weighted around 9000 pounds. The car was a bit small since there were six of us counting the driver. On day two, they upgraded us to a much larger armored car which also looked like any other SUV on the street.

Each day, we went directly from the U.S. hotel to the Mexican factory and then back across the border. So, I didn't really get a chance to experience the real Tijuana. This is the only picture that I was able to take inside of Mexico:

We were told that if we reached the boarder after 5:00 PM that there would be a three hour wait. So, we left the office at around 4:00 PM each day to avoid the traffic bottleneck. This gave us the evenings to explore San Diego. The next picture was take just in front of the restaurant "World Famous on the Beach" where we ate a nice sea food dinner.


On Wednesday, we decided to hit Target, a store near our hotel, to buy swim suits. We spent a couple hours at the beach before going out to dinner.

Here's Mac & Chad showing off their new swim-wear:

Status Report

Sorry for not posting during the last couple of weeks. Last week, I worked in Nashville, TN. I don't have any pictures.... nothing much worth taking pictures of. Evenings consisted mostly of typical American chain restaurants.

This week, I am working from home. It is suggested that everyone take vacation this week. Due to lower seniority, I have half the vacation of most of my team. I don't want to burn my vacation yet as I hope to visit relatives in November. The result is that it's hard to get much work done as I can't seem to reach many people for calloboration. I might take a day and bring Sky & BJ to a water park depending on the weather. Next week I'm back in Nashville with the data team.

The upcoming trip to Tijuana is on. Don't expect many pictures. I can't take photos during work. And, they'll have an escort (possibly armed) to drive us each morning from San Diego across the border to the plant. Then, they'll take us back at the end of the working day. So, no exciting evening jaunts in Mexico. And for dinner, I suspect we'll wind up at a steakhouse chain.

Working from Home & Future Travel

I have been back in the States for a little over two weeks. It feels like a month has passed already. Skylar, my two year old son, keeps asking to go back to places in France. It's amazing how often pictures of key Parisian landmarks are shown in advertisements and product packaging. And, each time Sky sees one, he says, "I wanna go there again."

Now that I'm home, my role is changing once again. Instead of testing the core global system and reports, I'm starting to coordinate the mapping of data for logistics objects. My Lexington plant office is being moved to the other side of the building. Not that it matters since I mostly work from home when I'm not traveling.

Things I like about working from my house:

1. My home office / guest bedroom is so much more pleasant than a drab cubical.
2. Internet access is faster than in the office.
3. My Internet access is not monitored as long as I don't use the company laptop.
4. During conference calls, I can put the phone on speaker. In an office cubical, this is disturbing to others.
5. I can get more work done with fewer distractions.
6. I can cook lunch instead of always eating out.
7. My wife is a school teacher and has summers off. So, during the summer, I can eat lunch with family.
8. No dress code. I can even go to work in my PJ's or boxers if I want.
9. My morning commute now consists of simply rolling out of bed. With inflated gas prices, this saves money not just time.
10. I can bring my dog to work.

Next week, I go to Nashville for the official kick-off of "work ahead" data mapping for standard product plants in the U.S. and parts of Mexico. I'm likely to be required to travel to Nashville two or three weeks a month from now on. The schedule will be arrive Monday afternoon, leave Thursday afternoon. It's only a three and half hour drive from Lexington. And, unlike working in France, I get to have all of my weekends at home! If I gained anything from all of my travel abroad, it was a growing appreciation of family and my time spent at home.

Next month, I am planning a 4 day trip to Tijuana, Mexico. But, the trip may not happen due to increased security measures due to current unsafe conditions in parts of Mexico. I've been invited to Monterrey and other Mexican locations but don't have time to visit them all personally. Tijuana is the least safe of all but is where my key subject matter experts reside.