(Note: By chance, I can confirm the cited mass layoffs of engineers in PG&E. A few years ago I participated in a focus group testing "jury" reaction to a discrimination suit being brought by laid-off PG&E personnel, and one of the things we learned was that dead --oops, I mean, middle-aged-- white male employees were being deliberately targeted for removal -- and that group was most abundant in the engineering dept ... )
Subj: Fw: Power Grid Date: 99-01-14 15:49:36 EST From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Tony Toews) To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] In comp.software.year-2000, Jon Roland <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: [Interesting. If true this is one more confirmation that the correct term is dumb sizing.] -------------------------------- From: Kenoli Oleari <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Power Grid Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1999 11:16:34 -0800 (PST) To: local list <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> I am doing electrical work for a commercial cabinet shop in San Francisco that has had to go to a lot of expense buying transformers to drive 480 volt equipment because PG&E has said it can only provide 240 volts in that area. I had an interesting conversation with a PG&E engineer in the process of finding out why the higher voltage was not available. He told me that since de-regulation in California, PG&E has done a significant amount of downsizing which included laying off their entire engineering department. This is the department that works with users to set up new services or make changes in service. He was the last one working there and he was not supposed to provide any technical information to customers. In the past, this department has been available to let customers know what kinds of power was available to them and to solve technical problems. In addition, he told me that management had come into his office and physically removed all of his technical journals and reference material to make sure that he didn't cost them money by providing information to customers. Also, he no longer was able to access information about what kind of power was available in different parts of the city. If a customer neded that information they have to fill out a form and submit it and they will get a response in from 2-6 weeks. Apparently, there are 4, 8 and 12 Kvolt lines to different parts of the city and PG&E used to stock transformers to reduce that voltage to the needs of customers. They have decided to only stock equipment for 12 KVolt areas and have gotten rid of the equipment they used to use foor the other voltages. This means that if commercial customers need anything more than 240 volts in those areas, they are out of luck. As far as I can tell, if power goes down, PG&E is very shorthanded in terms of engineers, knowledge of its own network and replacement equipment for a large part of its system. How is an agency like this going to deal with a number of bugs at once? Kenoli Oleari LEAP (Long Range Education, Empowerment and Action Project) 1840 Woolsey Street Berkeley, CA 94703 (510) 601-8217 / Fax: (510) 595-8369 ================================ Constitution Society 1731 Howe Ave., # 370 Sacramento, CA 95825 (916) 568-1022 / (916) 450-7941VM http://www.constitution.org/ [EMAIL PROTECTED]
