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Apr. 29th, 2005 09:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dichroicI'm off to Houston this weekend for a reunion of the company* I worked at for my first seven years after college. We made the trainers and simulators used by astronauts and military pilots on Apollo, Space Shuttle, SpaceLab, Space Station, AH-1W SuperCobra, F-16, KC-135 and other air and spacecraft at that site. If you saw the movie Apollo 13, that company's simulators and engineers would have been the ones portrayed. They've lost their space contracts to other companies and will be shutting down that site, hence the reunion.
(*Several companies, actually; the unit has belonged to a fair share of the major aerospace corporations over the years.)
Everyone at my current company seems to think the idea of a work reunion is bizarre, though in fact my previous department at a different site of this same company has gotten together a few times. That's fifteen people, though; this weekend's reunion is over five hundred. I'm trying to figure out the differences in culture and reasons for them; the main one I've come up with is that the Houston company had monthly happy hours, so we did all socialize more, and most people lived close enough to put in at least an occasional appearance at them.
Or maybe it's a Texas thing, or a space program thing? I don't know. I do know that it's extrememly difficult to find a community and make friends here in Phoenix.
(*Several companies, actually; the unit has belonged to a fair share of the major aerospace corporations over the years.)
Everyone at my current company seems to think the idea of a work reunion is bizarre, though in fact my previous department at a different site of this same company has gotten together a few times. That's fifteen people, though; this weekend's reunion is over five hundred. I'm trying to figure out the differences in culture and reasons for them; the main one I've come up with is that the Houston company had monthly happy hours, so we did all socialize more, and most people lived close enough to put in at least an occasional appearance at them.
Or maybe it's a Texas thing, or a space program thing? I don't know. I do know that it's extrememly difficult to find a community and make friends here in Phoenix.
