The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by seaan:

The NEBO plant is in San Jose. The fuel rod processing was moved into a remote location around Livermore. The site was still there a year ago, but I have no idea what they are doing now.

The main plant is largely a paper-work factory now - GE has not sold a new plant since 1980 or so. I happened to work at NEBO during a transition when they laid off most of their manufacturing people and started hiring engineers and the like. At the point, the NCR was churning out around 1000 regulations per year (~3 a day). Someone had to make sure the current plants were in compliance, or figure out what changes had to be made.

As an aside, I learned that GE is not a good a company to work for -- at least not as a peon during that time. It was very hierarchal, and they treated most employees as cogs contrasted with giving upper managers special treatment. They did not seem to value their mid-level professionals very much (engineers, programmers, etc.) At the time, I described it to my friends as "2nd Wave" employment practices (referring to Toffler's book: Third Wave).

Back in the mid-80's I worked at a security job for at GE's Nuclear Engery (NEBO) plant. I made about $5.25/hour, and the supervisors made $5.95/hour (can't forget the $0.25/hour bonus for graveyard). This compared to about $7-8/hour for the starting janitor salary.

The NEBO plant had a bunch of test equipment, it's own power substation, and a number of very real potential hazards (although they had moved fuel rod production to a different site by the time I was working there). Practically speaking, during any emergency occurring in the off-hours, the first 30 minutes or so would find the multi-million dollar site in the hands of a guy making less money than a starting Janitor.

Personally speaking, the security job did help me learn the lesson that no matter how low paid a job is, there is still some meaning about "doing it right". Unfortunately, I think most of the people working there never learned that lesson. I heard a number of stories about airport security back than 96 a big increase in responsibilities and hardly any more pay than industrial security.

I have to say that none of the horror stories about the quality and training of airport security surprises me in the least. It is mostly a repetitive low-paid and low-status job, although I think the government involvement has potential to improve the pay and status part.

Ironically my security guarding does help me from time to time. I volunteered to be on the company emergency response teams (fire and earthquakes are the two main threats in Silicon Valley). As an applied cryptographer and programmer it also gives me some insight into the users of systems that I design.

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