Katy Dickinson

A Company for Big Hearts

In my 1 May 2009 blog, I wrote "Sun is a company for people with big hearts."

I thought about that today when I heard the end of a story which made me even more proud of the people with whom I have the honor to work. A week ago, one of the Software Directors sent out email to Sun's Menlo Park campus telling about one of our janitorial staff who had suffered a tragedy and needed immediate help. Her young son had just died by violence and she had no money to pay for his funeral. Her janitorial co-worker had asked for donations.

Since then, we learned from the Director who was helping to raise money that:

7 October:
"The county was able to get the cost of the funeral/burial down to $8,500. To date, we have collected $6,000 from Sun employees alone! The generosity of the people on this campus is truly overwhelming. There were so many of you who gave LARGE donations, even though you weren't sure who [our co-worker] was. We had a donation from China as well as one from Prague. Several of you couldn't get to the office and sent me PayPal or checks. I have had people come by and give me all the money in their wallet! The most touching, though, was from the 11 year old son of an employee who gave his allowance. I am not even sure I can find the right words to tell you all how much this means to [our co-worker] and her family."

13 October::
"I am so proud to say that we collected over $12,000! We paid for the entire funeral and burial AND were able to give [our co-worker] $3,500 to help her get the counseling and other help she will need to get through this awful tragedy.
[Our co-worker] came back to work yesterday. We hugged each other for a long time. All she could say was "thank you." I know how much what you all did means to her. She can now mourn the loss of her boy without worrying about how she is going to pay off that debt.
These last two weeks have been heartbreaking, yet also so very heartwarming. It is amazing to know that if any of us need help, we have a huge family here at Sun willing to jump in."

Such a sad circumstance cannot be said to have a happy ending but it could have been much worse without the support of the Sun community. I was not involved except by giving a small donation but (with permission) I wanted to share this story. Makes me proud.

Posted at 05:25PM Oct 13, 2009 by katysblog in News & Reviews  |  Comments[0]

SEED Mentoring's Autumn Event

The SEED worldwide mentoring program will hold its regular autumn event on 21 October 2009. Since the Sun-Oracle transition is taking longer than expected to complete, we are keeping up with business as usual as best we can.

Speakers and activities for the event will include:

• Christine Bucklin,
  Senior Vice President, Corporate Strategic Planning
• Hal Stern,
  Vice President, Global Systems Engineering, Global Sales and Services
  (and 14-time SEED Mentor)
• Tours of
  Sun Labs (featuring Gilda Garreton, Poorna Udupi, Stephen Uhler),
  the Enterprise Technology Center (featuring Rob Snevely),
  the Executive Briefing Center
• We may have a SEED dinner that night if there is enough interest

26 are registered to participate so far, less than usual for this event, about half of whom will join by video or conference call. We have reserved large video conference rooms in both Menlo Park, California, and Burlington, Massachusetts. I hope to see more registrations this week!

Posted at 10:26AM Oct 13, 2009 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  |  Comments[0]

First Big Rain in the Bay Area

The San Francisco Bay Area is enjoying its first big rain in about six months. We had one or two light sprinkles this summer but other than that, it has been very dry. KQED radio said this morning at 7:30 am there were 50 major traffic accidents on the highways. I was driving my son to school on Highway 280 this morning, going 65 miles per hour in heavy rain in the diamond lane (for commuters with two or more passengers), when three cars in turn came up right behind me to flash their lights so that they could speed ahead. Traffic was light, so they soon drove around my apparently too-slow self. We all forget how to drive in the rain during the summer.

My husband John spent yesterday at home putting everything away that wandered outside during the dry spell: the pillow on the deckchair, the hammock, the painting scaffold, stuff moved onto the driveway while working on a project in the storage area, etc. He and our neighbor Felix also quickly finished the overhang roof over the storage shelves at the back of the garage. Unfortunately, one of my prickly pear cactus and the English walnut tree on the river bank had grown enthusiastically into that space, so much yelping and whacking of plants were part of the project.

Afternoon update -
what the Guadalupe River (West Alma/Lelong bridge in Willow Glen) looked like when we drove home:

Wet leaves:

Images Copyright 2009 by Katy Dickinson

Posted at 09:49AM Oct 13, 2009 by katysblog in News & Reviews  |  Comments[0]