Light bulbs. Lots of Lightbulbs.

I just got back from a visit to the incandescent plant and surrounding town where I will be living next. It was interesting. The plant itself is loud and smelly. I work in a plant that is loud and smelly, but we generally keep it in the building. Not so much with the incandescent factory. Apparently if you've been making light bulbs in the same small town for 100 years no one really bothers you with things like environmental considerations. At 2 million bulbs a day, the factory really is quite amazing. They have automated fork trucks which drive around carrying 12,000 bulbs at a time and break nothing. The factory seems to go on forever; in my third day wandering around the plant I still found entirely new areas (like the life testing area: a whole room full of perpetually burning, warm incandescent light bulbs. I will be moving my desk into there shortly). More striking than anything, though, was the space. They have space. It is sadly obvious that the factory is becoming a relic; they still produce 2 million a day, but compact fluorescent has definitely been providing still competition. It will be an experience to work there, but more because I feel it may be a dinosaur branch of the company slowly sinking into the tar pit.

The town was also an experience. We drove 2 hours from the airport just to reach it, hidden away in the hills. The surrounding national forest was just beginning to show the fall foliage and served as a stunning backdrop to the rampant and stately elk. The town has a town square with the general town square essentials and cute little shops with apartments above. The houses are modest, reflecting the town's average household income of less at $30,000/year. The people are friendly and down to earth; the nuns from the local catholic school even mow their own lawn in the habits and a baseball cap these people are so practical. It will be a simple, quiet and inexpensive existence for a couple months if I can convince my car over the hills in the dead of winter to get there. It may not be the most social or fun time of my life, but it should be survivable.

The last real experience of the trip was my boss. My boss is a mixed bag, sometimes being wonderful and allowing me the freedom to make my own mistakes, other times being tactless, overbearing or micromanaging. This trip was heavy on tactless, starting with our arrival at the plant. The intern, a not-yet-graduated industrial engineer had prepared a presentation for us of what she does for the project. My boss showed no restraint in commenting on how things were not being done like we do them at our plant, or critiquing the charts and graphs. Having never met the incandescent people before that moment, I found myself wishing I was part of them instead of associated with my obnoxious boss. It was so frustrating to watch that once in the car I built up the courage to tell my boss he had been wrong. For someone as shy and eager to please as myself, this was extremely difficult, so it had to be bad. Although he was still tactless beyond my threshold for the remainder of the trip, at least he apologized for being so tactless to the incandescent people. Now if I could only get him to treat the Mexican plant with more respect and understanding...