I know our company has had a few name changes over the years, but at the heart, most of us are still AMD people. Recently, one of my coworkers told me I should visit a page on Facebook dedicated to connecting old AMD people to each other. I hadn't paid much attention to it until tonight when Wife saw it on her computer while looking at a family thing. She pointed it out to me and I was captured audience for the next two hours or so as I went all the way back looking for familiar names. At first it seemed like the page was for other people but soon enough it started feeling like me.
People are talking about how they put twenty years there and I think that is a long time, but I am going on 23 years there, so I am definitely more than a new hire. Yes, there were some people talking about Fab5, which I am unaware of any of its history, but I knew Fab10, the second fab built in Austin in the 80s. I worked in Fab14, which was built in a huge building along with Fab15, for more than three years as a sustaining engineer, four if you count my first year as a technician. I have thought of this many times as the best part of my career. I was young and learning pretty much every day. I had a cool boss teaching me how to appreciate being a man, such as ordering your steak medium rare to really taste the meat, not the burned char of the grill. I was new on night shift and able to get by on a few hours sleep.
I went down a long way before I actually saw familiar names, but eventually I saw one of the maintenance technicians calling out our lead operator and she responded a few weeks ago. Not knowing what else to do, I added a hello to both of them on that chat, just to throw my name in there. I really thought these people were great. They took the time to show me stuff so that I could in time help them and we worked together for what seemed like a long time until the Fab rumors started that they were shutting down. I bolted to find a more secure position and ended up in the department I am in now that has become its own company.
I may be the last one of our Fab14 D shift group still employed onsite and that gives me mixed emotions. On the one hand, I'm proud of myself for avoiding so many lay-offs, but on the other, maybe I would have expanded my palette and tried a different career path instead of doing what I am doing now. The reality being that prior to this week off, I was feeling for the first time "burnt out", like maybe I should look for a new career already. Maybe I am just antsy because I am such a whore about my pay and I feel I need more. Most everybody on the FB page is still doing semiconductors, some are just doing it at Samsung across town or in what was Motorola, some have even gone to the dark side and gone to Phoenix and wherever evil Intel is located.
I know Intel is largely responsible for spreading computers to everything and everyone, but I believe it was AMD biting on its heels keeping prices in the realm of the common man and we helped push innovation because Intel was not going to let our tiny company get more than a fragment of the market. As AMD'ers, I believe we all have a little of that "little train that could" inside of us because we were always fighting something bigger than us and we didn't give up.
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