2 Lower

We're in our new location. Sources department occupies most of Building 2 Lower on site and they have given us some of their floorspace. Area 51's assembly and test groups have been set up in an L shape with the test racks across a walkway from assembly. Our techs have used a dark alcove way in the back as a sort of isolated little command center. Assembly consists of three workbenches all planted single file, one ahead of the other, and the power supply test rack right behind the first assembly bench. Surrounding our assembly group are dozens of assembly workbenches for other Signal Generator product lines. Inevitably we're going to be exposed to Sources personnel sitting out here on the shop floor. I'm not looking forward to it.

For some stupid reason I can't figure out, the plan for our move ended up placing our MI/EI Button Up area way down on the other side of the building. If Little Carol needs me for something like helping her lift a heavy unit or if she has a question for one of us, she has to walk all the way through the department just to get to us. It's weak. In a way this has fractured our line, it doesn't feel like we have our own real instrument line or identity anymore. Maybe that was the idea.

A group calling themselves Nerdville are just down the hall from us. I don't know what they do, but their department banner hanging over an office cubicle maze has the word "Nerdville" on it in big white letters. Cool. Right across the hallway is our engineering staff. There are a number of other groups and departments scattered around Building 2. The Spectrum Analyzer department is on the second main aisleway from us, out back there is the Physics Lab, Chemical Stores, Machine Shop, and the Environmental Lab. So far I've quickly checked out all of them just to get a better idea of where everything is at. Someone in the Environmental Lab has a rather dark sense of humor. The office for the lab is directly across from their temperature chamber area. In one of the office windows there is a PC board with a great big hole going through it and it's mounted for display on an aluminum pedestal. Just below the board's gaping hole there's a yellow post-it note that says "9mm @ 25 Yards." Makes me laugh every time I walk by and see it. Guess that PC board received justice from the barrel of a gun.

Building 2 is depressing to work in. Overhead lighting is dim, at least compared to our previous spot in 1 Upper. I like to have bright light while I'm working otherwise it strains my eyes too much and I get headaches. It's also much colder in here at night than Building 1 which is uncomfortable. I've been wearing my Army field jacket to help me stay warm. The entire shop floor is a dark gray concrete. Maintenance waxes the concrete with an ESD conductive material. Instead of laying flooring tiles that are ESD conductive like everywhere else in the buildings nobody in management bothered to spend a little cash to properly outfit 2 Lower for instrument production. Because we work with electronics that are extremely sensitive to static electricity everything must remain grounded at all times. The flooring we work over has to be conductive electrically so we don't zap any instruments or PC boards. We measure the floor for electrical resistance periodically and if it's too "hot" action has to be taken immediately. If an outside ISO 9000 auditing company comes in and finds we're in violation of this, they could shut our whole department down until we fix it. So it's kind of a big deal.