Brycon: A Summer In Review

Well I've been happily enrolled in college and attending classes at the University of Utah for over a month and a half now. I'm thoroughly enjoying my time and I love all my classes. Yet despite my "easy" life, I can't help but occasionally reflect on my days at Brycon. Although we complained every day about working, and I can't remember a good hour where I wasn't dozing off, I sometimes feel that maybe it was a good experience, ya know?

It had always been part of my plan to write a review/summary about our summer at Brycon, and wrap up our experiences whether they were good, bad, dreary, memorable, uninteresting, spectacular, or just plain crappy. Every day was another adventure, and I quickly found that keeping a daily journal of the goings-on at Micron--especially after a 10 hour work day--was a tedious and sometimes overwhelming commitment. Thankfully I was able to do it, day in and day out, even when I was way too tired and my mom constantly pestered me to go to bed. My buddies laughed when I told them I was blogging our adventures, and I couldn't blame them...it was pretty nerdy--but it was better than writing in a journal, and easier. Then when I finally persuaded Skye to finish off the very last week (which he did for a few of the days) and he read a few of the entries, he actually did express some gratitude toward my foresight in recording as much as I could possibly remember. We, all of us, had to admit that although we pretty much hated the job most of the time, we had way too many funny moments and good experiences to let them slip entirely into the back of our minds and become forgotten forever.
So I kept this record, and it was a good thing.


Brycon...what can I say about you? I won't forget you, that's for sure. When we applied for the job, we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. No, it wasn't a horribly overwhelming task we'd undertaken, but the enormity of our situation (6am work, 10 hours per day, etc.) was somewhat unnerving to begin with. The work was peculiar--one wouldn't consider it to be traditional construction, yet it was construction in every sense of the word. The days weren't exciting, like one expects a construction job to be, but monotonous. They were tiring, but then, nobody ever really woke up in the first place. Ron said to me once, during a conversation about work, "You never really wake up in there. You don't wake up until 4:30, when you get off work. There's just something about it inside that keeps you asleep." He was right. Someone jokingly asked me if they were pumping ether into the FAB when I told them you couldn't wake up, but it made me wonder.

I can't really say enough about how completely weird of a job it was. It was simply nothing like we'd imagined, nothing like we'd ever imagined, and I'm not sure how many jobs there are like it in the world. It was certainly a once-in-a-lifetime experience--or let's hope, at least. It was one of those jobs that you're glad you worked once, so you can say you did it--let's face it, it is pretty cool to tell someone that you built a clean room for manufacturing NAND Flash Technology that is used in iPods, cameras, phones, and lots of other useful gadgets...it just is--but it's also one of those jobs that every teenager needs to have at one point, if only to scare them into finishing high school and going to college.

We learned a lot about real work this summer that we probably wouldn't have learned otherwise. At first it surprised us that we were treated like adults. Up until then we weren't only minors, but we had never really been treated as equals, at least to the same degree as the guys down at Brycon treated us. I suppose it was true that we earned the same wages and did the same work, but it was just something new. It was nice to experience that finally, especially after high school.

We learned a lot about how a clean room worked, and was assembled. This was especially interesting to me, as I'm planning on majoring in Architecture, but it was also just really an idea that none of us had ever considered. There is an amazing amount of work that goes into these clean rooms that you wouldn't just think about.

Not only did we learn a lot of useful things, but we were able to meet people from all over the country. Working with them really opened our eyes to the variety of personalities there are in the world--it's true, we do live a sheltered life, and it's not as often that you get to work with a hungover mexican guy who spouts crazy lines like "Are you sure?" or "Vamanos vaya Wyoming!" Sure they weren't the best influence, and I've never heard so many f-ing f-words in my life before, but these men and women were good people. You sometimes don't expect to meet wonderful, warm-hearted individuals working construction, but every one of our coworkers had a soft spot, and every one was very polite. Most of them somehow knew we were LDS, and tried their best to tone down their language when we were around. Brad and I were especially thankful and surprised that they would willingly do such a thing without being asked or approached about it.

I guess our coworkers were the best part about working at Brycon. We'd ball it up with Ron and Thomas on Tuesdays. Sometimes Bryce would come, sometimes Ian would too. The whole premise seemed crazy to me at the time. After a 10 hour workday, let's all get back together and play some basketball for 2 or 3 more hours. Sure we'll be aching tomorrow, but quit being a baby! Other than basketball, we got invited to a few more events--namely Skye got invited--like Cowboy's birthday party. Skye was the only one who actually was invited and actually went, and nobody would have minded if the rest of us showed up, cause they loved us, but we just didn't. At the party Thomas kept offering Skye beers, not cause he wanted Skye to drink, but he thought it was pretty funny that Skye kept refusing it. He could offer all the beer he wanted to Skye and be certain that he wouldn't really have to share it in the end. It was actually the perfect situation for both parties. Neither had to do anything he didn't want to, yet all of the social protocol was observed.

Thomas was great, Cowboy was funny, Geneva and Elvina were entertaining in their own ways, Alfredo made me and Brad almost pee our pants, Luis and Arturo scared me to begin with cause they rode the lifts around and covered most of their faces in beard covers, Lawrence always looked out for us, and then there was Ron who topped them all and made our day, everyday. Don't forget us though, Quinn, Brad, Skye, Griffin, Jeff, Brady, and I all laughed it up in between work and kept each other going. In fact, I was just remembering the one time that Griffin made me laugh really hard. Brad and I were just getting into his car and pulling out of a parking stall at Kohlers, and Griffin was entering something into his phone in his car with the rest of the guys inside with him. Just before we started to move Griffin said, "Wait, Brad!" and Brad stopped, waiting to hear what Griffin so urgently needed to say. But instead of saying anything, Griffin quickly kicked it into reverse and backed out of the stall, swinging his car out behind us and before we knew it, he had shifted into drive and driven off. Brad and I just started laughing in unbelief that we'd fallen for such a silly thing, but there was absolutely no way we could possibly forsee it. In case you were wondering, that's what it was like everyday. Just fun.

From the great people to the funny jokes, from the awkward moments to the times we laughed so hard we forgot why we were laughing to begin with, from the time "Cowboy called and said he doesn't like your outfit" to the time Brad knocked out his tooth and got it put right back in, from the beginning to the end. Was it worth it? I say 'yes.' We complained but it was a good job. My final say on the matter is that it was definitely worth it, and in retrospect, I miss it sometimes.

We'll never forget you Brycon. How could we?

Day 34: ???

It was probably my best day at Brycon so far today. This is pretty surprising considering it was not particularly comical. I started out the morning in the all too familiar pass-through. We started another box of tile, and I told Cowboy to look outside. After viewing the vast expanses of pallets of tile lining the diminutive wall space, he told us, “no more tiles.” That left us with nothing but odd jobs and careful, precise – in other words, slow – cleaning of primary beams and carts. The day moved puzzlingly quickly, despite the lack of work.

At first break, I talked a lot with Thomas. What started out as mostly basketball talk from the game tonight before turned into some talk about college. I found out that Thomas dropped out of college because of some alcohol problems. He regrets not finishing college a lot, and said it was good that I was planning on sticking through four years or more. After break, I returned to the pass-through. We were given a box of probably 250 screws or so. Needless to say, we thought it prudent to carefully clean each one separately. This occupied most of the second block of work. Cowboy asked Josefina if there were any other words for cowboy in Spanish. Apparently, he was bored of us calling him “Vaquero.” She started spouting off synonyms of the word “cow,” I think. She said “Toro,” and I correctly guessed that meant “bull.” With impeccable timing, Gerard walked in. Josefina exclaimed, “Si, Toro!” and Gerard gave a really funny face that happened to remind me of a bull. That provided a nice chuckle. Gerrard came to lead us to a special sprung tent where we were going to have a pizza party. Yes!

We left for the pizza party at about 11:15 and didn’t get back until about 12:30. It was great. There was plenty of food, drinks, and time to sit down. A lot of people that I could have sworn didn’t work with us were there. One unlikely guest was George, a guy who works with Aerotek. I didn’t go talk to him, because he would just ask me if I had found anyone to replace my group of friends that got hired. After a long break, we went back to work.

I revisited the pass-through, but was quickly booted out by Alex. She needed my help in the other pass-through to push filters. I happily obliged; it didn’t feel like a betrayal because it was still a pass-through. But the truth is that things run quite differently in the west-side pass-through. Ron is a resident there, and that changes the entire atmosphere of the place. I guess they needed the filters quick, because Alex went berserker-general on us. She was ordering everyone around, including Gerard, who was working along side the rest of us. We moved an entire truckload of filters, (25 pallets or so) which I assume is quite an accomplishment due to the fact that Alex felt perfectly fine letting all of us leave several minutes early. The flurry was fun because it kept me occupied, I got to work with Gerard, (who is really fun and easy to talk to) and it all felt kind of sneaky because we were breaking nearly all the protocol rules in the book. If a protocol guy had seen us in the pass-through or taken a particle count, we would have been shutdown mighty quick. We remained unknown the entire afternoon, however, and I walked outside into the bright, shining sunlight – so blissful after long hours in the cold, barren clean room – and waited for my mom to pick me up. As I walked up to my white Toyota Previa, I managed to hear one of my favorite workers, Quincy AKA Chin-up guy, provide a perfect capstone to my day.

Quote of the Day:

“It’s sunshine boys; we made it!”
-Quincy

Ron’s Trash Talk of the Day:

(After I told him I was going to try to get my dad to come play basketball on Tuesday)

“Good! I need to light him up.”
-Ron

Day 33: Stringer Smuggling

Today was just another day at the pass-through. The girl that used to be a yellow-hat, Jennifer, was promptly switched to gasketing. That, along with the fact that she is married, ruined Josefina’s previous guess that she and I would start going out. Not to worry, because today we were given yet another tyro named Alicia. She speaks Spanish AND English, so she could be very useful in the future. We put in tile and lined the entire south wall until we literally couldn’t fit any more pallets. But Jason said he wanted lots of tile, so that’s what he’s going to get.

We had our multi-company safety meeting this morning, always a great opportunity to take a nap or have a light breakfast. I opted for food and was rewarded when the head safety guy explained some bizarre injuries and had a great one-liner that would probably make Mr. Birrell shudder – see quote of the day. I still think it would be more advantageous for IMFT to have the safety people and the superintendents attend the meeting, but I won’t complain because meetings provide an interesting diversion to the work week.

It’s time for the Josefina moment of the day. We were having several people wipe down stringers, and someone suggested that I take the stringers that Josefina had cleaned and transfer them to the same cart. I knew this was a bad or at least fruitless idea, but finally consented. In broken Spanish, I asked if we should move the stringers to the cart. She shook her head and spouted off Spanish until I left her alone. However the other person (sorry, I’m not trying to be enigmatic, I just can’t remember her name) would not give up. Christian suggested that I just take them. The wheels started turning in my head – that doesn’t happen to often – and I decided to use the immature route and promptly shouted “Mira!” and pointed. As Josefina quizzically turned to where my finger was pointing I tried to slink away with some of her stringers. I was caught red-handed, before I could safely smuggle the stringers away. After this incident, the trust that had grown between us was broken. She refused to talk or even look at me. However, my irresistible charm soon caused her to forget the incident and things were back to normal.

Sometimes I wonder if anyone realizes the irony when I try and translate what Jesus is saying to Christian. Anyone catching the irony? Anyone? Well, I can’t wait for yet another day working with the pass-through crew.

Quote of the Day:

"I think Captain John Smith used that rope to tie off the Mayflower in 1462”

-Head Safety Guy

Day 32: The Lone Survivor

There’s a new sheriff in town, and his name is Skye Larsen. Due to the fact that Grant is a Dick (read post on Day 4 if you’re alarmed by my seemingly garish language) and Brad is a…Brad, I am now the lone survivor at Brycon Inc. It is now my solemn duty to inform the reader on the goings-on in the clean room. The pass-through is the most underrated part of the clean room. While Grant er…Richard’s attempts at explaining the relevance of the pass-through have been noble, they sadly do not make the cut. Basically, without the pass-through there would be no FAB. There would be no materials to work with. There would be no designated trilingual areas. Basically, life at Brycon would be at a standstill. With that mild rant out of the way, I feel like you will better understand the undeniable, indubitable, irrefutable importance of my job.

Today, we really didn’t do anything at the pass-through. Our seeming significance was even further hindered by the fact that the main item we shipped into the clean room, perf tiles, continued to stack up against the side of the wall – unused. The day was not all at a loss, however.

First we’ll start with Josefina. Doubtless, the reader has heard of this incredible persona. However, words – or should I say, palabras – will never fully describe this strong-willed, Spanish-speaking lady. With that in mind, here is my paragraph on Josefina, Day 32. The funniest part of Josefina is her ability to surprise me at any given time on any given day. The Josefina moment of the day (which probably should have been included with “quote of the day” and “trash talk of the day”) occurred thusly. I was minding my own business, stacking tile after tile, and I hear the following europop-style repetition of Josephina, “rapido…..rapido…..rapido.” I turn around and Josephina is doing a little jig. I would elaborate, but I can neither express my thoughts on this matter, nor find a need to do so. She has become even stranger – and more hilarious – with the addition of Jesus (pronounced Hay-Seuss, in case you were wondering). They now talk to each other in rapid Spanish and will occasionally mention me and start laughing. I’m glad I obviously bring a lot of joy to their lives.

So much to talk about. Hmmm. Well, to cover up the somewhat important and boring things that happened, I was yet again left alone and consequently in charge of the pass-through, which is both stimulating and challenging. Jesus was the only one outside the pass-through, and something needed to be sent to the cut shop, so I told Jesus to come follow me (sorry, couldn’t resist). It turned out that the cut shop had disappeared – later I found out it was moved – and my shame was intensified because I couldn’t even explain to the unilingual old man that the cut shop had simply evanesced without anyone telling me anything about it. Oh, and the rest of the day we moved tile.

The final event of the laborious day will require a little background. There is another company at IMFT who wear yellow hard hats. Even more curious then their flowery helmet choice is their job (all they seem to do is sweep the floor and take out apparently random trash bags) and the conflux of fairly hot chicas that work for them. Brady was the first of us to note their existence, but their impact in the building is now unquestionable. Every man’s head turns at least a little as they walk by. Anyways, in a strange twist of events, it seems that one of the yellow hats has turned traitor and joined Brycon. Not only that, she works in the pass-through. Thus it was my grave responsibility to show her around and talk to her about Brycon. After a long conversation about how to wipe things finished I turned around to find Josefina and Jesus giggling…AGAIN. She hinted that she had figured out who the girlfriend I had been talking about earlier was. She assumes much, and assumes wrongly.

Anyway, this has been a long post, so I apologize but hope you have been entertained and, much more importantly, informed on the proceedings at Brycon. I can’t wait for Tuesday!!!


Quote of the Day:

(in a hushed voice) “Skye, watch out, Jesus is watching you.”
-Thomas

Day 31: The Last Day!

Today was our last day at Brycon. Brad and I were ecstatic about it. In fact, the only thing better than it being our last day was that Skye told us we could leave whenever we wanted. Brad was like "WHAT?! YES!" and I was too.

We woke up extra early to go to Betos and have a last day fling. Each of us bought 2 breakfast burritos for ourselves, and then we bought one for Alfredo too, cause we promised we would. I woke up at 4am randomely, and since I knew if I went back to sleep at all I would be dead tired, I stayed awake and got ready to go. Brad and I drove down to Betos and after eating one burrito, I wasn't even full. That was the first time ever, and it was weird.

I found out today, while I was walking in to work with Ron, that he knows a guy in my ward, named Howard Reiner. It was pretty crazy, cause apparently he's Ron's best friend, and they used to go and do public speaking and stuff. I thought it was pretty cool.

We decided to leave at 2pm today, after working for 8 hours. We figured since it was overtime, that was fine. We told Lawrence and he was like whatever. During the Pre-Task Plan they were having such a bad conversation, that Brad and I went to get earplugs. We needed them anyway, cause we punched holes in the ceiling all day. Daniel was working with us too.

There were no more offset blocks for the ceiling, and all the grid layouts were crooked and needed to be offset. That's not an unusual thing, since the I-beams aren't always exactly in the right place, but since there were no more offset blocks, we could only punch the holes. We usually install the blocks too, but we couldn't.

After lunch, Lawrence told us he wanted us to put the centered blocks on, even though they would be an entire inch off and really screw stuff up. There was nothing we could do, so we basically stuck them on, but left them loose, so they could change them up once they got the new offset blocks in.

Skye was supposed to show up to work today, but never did. We thought that he had just decided not to go, but apparently he woke up with a sore throat and was pretty sick. He decided it wasn't worth it, so he stayed home.

Brad and I sang his new Italian Hot Babe song, and we started to write verses and decided that we would combine a bunch of different styles and basically cover everything from choral sections to a rap section in our song. Probably some guitar-wailing too. It will be a dominant song, and we're gonna record it at our apartment soon. It was pretty funny and kept us entertained pretty much all day.

Basically our last day at work was a lot of fun. We left at 2pm, after saying our goodbyes to Lawrence, Luis, Alfredo, Arturo, Felipe and Daniel. They're all great guys, and Brad and I were really glad we met them and got to work with them for at least this little while.


Quote of the Day:

"Crap, I forgot to wear my pants today!!"
-Brad


Ron's Trash Talk of the Day:

"People will be like, 'Do you know Brad Findeis?' and I'll be like 'Oh yeah, I play ball with him...just laid him up last week.'"
-Ron

Day 30: "I Want An Italian Hot Babe!"

I want an Italian hot babe,
I don't want an Italian not babe,
I want an Italian hot babe,
and I want one now!
-Brad

Brad made up a song about Skye's incredibly, insanely, good-looking Italian step-cousin today. He sang it a lot during lunch and when we were walking out after work. Gina happened to be in front of us, and after he finished she turned around and was like "...okay......" It was pretty funny.

Today went by extremely quickly, I thought. I worked with Jaime, wiz nutting and caulking all day. We worked on the newer section of grids that we'd hung yesterday. That took us until just after lunch. It took us a lot longer than Lawrence really wanted, but there wasn't much we could do. It's pretty tedious work. For the first shift, before the 9am break, Jaime basically pushed me around and I wiz nutted all alone. It kinda bugged me, but I didn't say anything. By the time I got back into the FAB after the break, Jaime was up on the scaffold, wiz nutting. I joined him and we switched jobs from the way we started out in the morning. I was putting the bolts in and then he'd put the nuts on, while I tightened them and he took off down the ladder and then pushed me along when I was ready. Well, that didn't last long, since after about 4 times, he just stayed down there. This time I did the nuts and took off down the ladder to push the scaffold. That was nice cause I knew I was actually going to go back up and help. I did get really tired after doing it well over 50 times throughout the day though.

After we got the first section wiz nutted, we had to caulk. Since I know how to caulk better than Jaime, I was the one to stayed on top and did it. That took much longer than it usually does, because the wires that run through the grid and out the ends, usually slow us down but we can just get through them by pushing a little harder with the caulking gun. Now they're all connected in the clamps by Wasatch Electric. So now every time I got to the wires, I had to pull them down out of the cracks and caulk up to them and then start on the other side caulking again. It slowed me down an incredible amount for such a simple difference. By the end of it, I got better and faster at caulking around them, but it still took a good extra 30 to 60 minutes.

After lunch, Jaime and I finished with the first section that Lawrence asked us to do, and moved over to the new grids that he was hanging today. They're much shorter and took a lot less time to wiz nut. We finished about 14 of them in a few hours. We finished just in time for clean up, so we never got to caulk them. I expect that Lawrence will have us do that tomorrow.

Tomorrow's going to be my first Saturday working, and my first 6-day week. Today was my first 5th day in a work week at Brycon. There have been so many holidays or sick days or vacation days that I usually take a day off during the week and I never wanted to go in on Saturday. I am going tomorrow, so I can finish strong and get a huge paycheck for my last time. Tomorrow's our last day--mine and Brad's. Skye's staying until next Friday...poor soul. I hope he has fun, cause I can't stand to work there anymore. I'm glad I'm quitting. It's fun, but it's too early every day. It's killing me.

Anyway, I'm totally excited for tomorrow to be our last day, and I'm totally excited for Betos. Brad and I are going to Betos early tomorrow, before work, and getting breakfast burritos. We're getting one for Alfredo too. He's excited, I think. At first he said no, but then Brad showed him how big they were and he was like "Holy s***!" So he decided he wanted one instead.

Here's to our last day!


Quote of the Day:

Brad: "Lawrence I gotta go to the Dentist's today at 1:30."
Lawrence: "The Dentist's?!"
Brad: "It's just a two-week check up, so it'll be in and out....VRUMP VRUMP (making hand actions)
Lawrence: "VRUMP VRUMP?"

(Everyone laughs at Brad's dumb noise)

Alfredo: "VRUMP VRUMP!"
Arturo: "VRUMP VRUMP!"
Luis: "VRUMP VRUMP!"

Lawrence: "What's VRUMP VRUMP?"
Alfredo: "You're speaking to Magneto..."


Thomas' Trash Talk of the Day:

"I need to lose 15 or 20 pounds and then I'd be amazing. I'd be like MJ, stretching out like this. (Acts like he's dunking the ball) And then I'll reach down and hold Brad's face down and then smack it a little bit, and then dunk it!"
-Thomas

Day 29: For Grid's Sake

Today moved so slowly today that I thought I would die. Lawrence asked us to move grids around and position them in spots where they would eventually be hung in the ceiling. There was a section in the newer area, where some of the grids on the outer edge by where the RTF edge ended. We placed about 8 over there for Lawrence to hang after he finished punching holes in the newest area of the RTF.

That took us until the first break, and we quickly left to eat. I was really hungry and tired. None of us could stay awake--not even Daniel, who usually is full of energy and ready to make us work quickly. He didn't really push us this morning, so it felt like the three of us just wandered around. Brad and I were so tired.


After we moved the grids over, we needed to add hardware, so Brad and I did that pretty quickly, and passed the time by laughing about the funny things that Fernando says. One time Lawrence was telling Derek, Brad, and Fernando about how hard it was for him when his father died a few years ago. Suddenly Fernando said to Lawrence, "That's okay, Lawrence, we like you anyway." Brad and Derek just laughed because it was so random--as if they wouldn't like Lawrence cause his dad died. Another time we were talking about something the Chinese do, and Brad said, "Yeah, the Chinese are whacked." Fernando said, "But they love you anyway." Same thing...we just started to laugh. Brad and I spent a while mimicking the way Fernando says things--he has a nasaly voice that's just really funny. He's a great guy though.

We also spent time laughing about Daniel, who really talks to me and Brad like we're idiots sometimes. It's just funny how he thinks he knows the best way to do anything. So Brad and I would keep being like, "Hey, you know what I've found works best for this?" whenever one of us was doing some sort of task. It was pretty funny, even when we did it to Daniel...he never really caught on to it.

So during the second shift we just kept moving grids. We focused on moving the grids that were in the way of the Wasatch Electric guys, who were pulling up tiles from the floor and installing wires and components underneath the RTF. That took a while and obviously the time flew...not.

At lunch I tried to enjoy myself as much as possible with relaxing. Brad and I debated about politics for a while. It was fun. We take different stands on issues and I never knew the way he felt about a lot of world matters. I dunno, it's hard for me to accept what other people say, when it feels so wrong to me. I like to listen, but a part of me--the part that is like my dad--wants to just shut them out cause I know they're wrong and I don't need to listen to them. The fact that Brad's my friend and that his counter arguments make more sense than other peoples is good. It makes me consider things from a different point of view.

After lunch we moved more grid...hooray. We moved the smaller grids that weighed a lot less...hooray. They were the ones that fit between the existing grid ceiling and the walls at the northern(?) end of the FAB. We're getting close to finishing areas of the ceiling for good. That's pretty cool, since we've been working on it for about a month, and there's no end in sight, despite how much work we've gotten done.

We basically spent the rest of the day moving grids. We probably moved grids over 50 times today. Probably well over 50...

The three of us were trying to get Cowboy to say "basically" today, since Quinn loved it so much, and we'd always say it like Cowboy. I've never heard it before, so for the last three hours of the day we'd be asking him questions like "What's the basic protocol for ordering grids from the grids outside?" or "Basically, how does this basically work...like the basics?" He never ever said basically. I finally got fed up with it and asked him to say basically, and I had to explain why. But it was so worth it! Hahahaha. He was really self-conscious about it after that, and we kept joking around about it with him all the rest of the day. He was basic-cally so embarassed. He was a good sport about it though and after that we couldn't stop saying "basi-cally."

Today was basic-cally alright....bas-ically.


Quote of the Day:

Cowboy: "So Brad says you've got a fantasy."
Grant: "A what?"
Cowboy: "A fantasy...you know, a tape fantasy. You've got to tape everything."
Grant: "Oh...well yeah."