Secret Bureau Logbook

Where on the Earth is Dmitry?

2009-07-27T21:26:00.003+04:00

Hey folks,

This is a short note just to let you know that I'm OK and feel good. I'm now employed by Russian Aviation Holding Company "Irkut" and take part in very interesting international project of converting A320 from passenger to freighter.

Yeah, this is twist of fate, I was (and, believe me, I remain) a huge Boeing enthusiast, but have to work in partnership with Airbus now. On the flip side, this is a unique opportunity for me to to touch two bases.

My work implies long-term business trips in Germany, primarily in Dresden, where I stay now.

Take care! Tschüss!

My last day at Sukhoi

2009-07-07T22:44:00.002+04:00

I finally left Sukhoi. Today was my last day there. Small costume party:

Ah, yes, the sweetest part, a respond on my farewell letter:

Dmitry,

We will certainly miss your support, highly professional dedication and personal touch.

Your professionalism combined with your calm and practical approach to resolving issues and problems certainly helped the program in the positive direction.

I'm sure these same qualities will serve you well and add to the success of your future endeavors.

Wishing you all the best.

Hard decision

2009-05-03T22:17:00.002+04:00

I'm about to leave Sukhoi for another company. Sukhoi seems to be ready to finally give me promotion and pay raise, but I have been waiting for too long and I don't see that Sukhoi is willing to care about its employees.

So, despite very close promotion I'm seriously considering to move for another Russian aviation holding company that has a big and interesting project with Western aircraft manufacturer.

The most interesting thing about this project is that it is being fully completed in Dresden, Germany. Which means I will not only have to move to another job, but to another country. This is very interesting thing, but very challenging, too.

I have already passed two interviews, including the one with my prospective supervisor. Franllky speaking, he made me very doubtful. Per his words I assume that the project has a lots of problems; and those problems look very similar to those I endure on Sukhoi right now. I'm not sure I want to go for it.

Next week will decide. Tuesday or Wednesday new company is to make me an offer. My supervisor at my current job is already aware that I'm about to leave. Most probably he will want to talk to me on the next week.

We'll see. Frankly speaking I feel myself very nervous.

This is captain speaking

2009-04-16T11:25:00.005+04:00

What a day! I'm currently in Everett, WA. One of my local fellows took me today to Paine Field to the scenic flight on his Piper Archer II. But it was not just a scenic flight, he allowed me to control the aircaft for a while. The flight gave me soooo much pleasure!

Despair

2009-03-28T20:06:00.003+03:00

Shame on me, I haven't been updating my blog for a pretty long time. Well, there were nothing exciting to describe.

Currently, I'm in despair. I've got neither pay raise nor promotion and I have no idea when I get them if I get them ever. My manager blames his manager for the delay, manager of my manager blames the top-management and this becomes an endless story.

OK, I still had some satisfaction from my job so far. But some--er, all!--top-management's moves and actions makes me sick. Thus, no money, no job satisfaction, what the hell I'm doing there?

I'm seriously considering leaving my current job and look for the new one. This will be really hard for me to quit. I've got great colleagues, great opportunity to achieve new professional level, great possibility to do what I always wanted to do. But this doesn't ding in my pocket.

One year

2008-08-28T00:09:00.002+04:00

This day, exactly a year ago, I started to work at Sukhoi Civil Aircraft Company after I left Moscow's Boeing branch.

This was a very interesting, exciting and challenging year. I achieved something, but there's a whole bunch of thing to be achieved in future.

I still haven't got a promotion and pay raise, but hopefully, will get it soon. Otherwise, I'll have to leave, although I really don't want to leave now.

New Program Director for Sukhoi Superjet 100

2008-06-09T23:53:00.002+04:00

Hey folks,

Some of you might remember Alexey Gurevich, Business Unit Director and Org Development Director at Boeing Russia. My manager at Boeing reported to senior manager who reported to Alexey, so technically I used to be under Alexey's supervision while at Boeing.

Guess what?

Alexey has moved to Sukhoi! Today was his first day as a Program Director for Sukhoi Superjet. And you know what? My supervisor reports to Program Management Office Director who will report to Alexey. I will be under Alexey's supervision again!

We're back

2008-05-02T10:25:00.002+04:00

I'm so sorry for not updating my blog for ages. Even though I've got some things to share, I don't have enough inspiration.

The most important thing at this moment is that we've got back from our trip to the States. Actually, we were back home on April, 15th. We had very memorable trip, met my old friends, saw lots of cool places, attended Jewish wedding, drove right by the ocean shore, walked through the NYC.

I hope I will share some pictures soon.

As for the other topics. I feel that I must to share with you some thoughts about how it is going on at me new job. Yes, I will do this, too.

Thank you for your interest and stay tuned.

Packed and ready to go

2008-04-02T00:35:00.002+04:00

My dear friends, I'm glad to announce that my wife Elena and I have packed our suitcases for tomorrow's travel to Seattle.

Our plans have slightly changed

2008-01-18T23:11:00.001+03:00

Remember, folks, I was writing about our intention to visit USA in February? Well, our plans have slightly changed, we're targeting for early April now. As usual, stay tuned and I will keep posting updates as soon as I will have more details to share.

New Year

2008-01-08T13:15:00.001+03:00

The day before yesterday my wife and me got back home from the Crimea where we met the year 2008.

We were not alone who came there on the New Year eve; there were 400+ people. The whole trip was organized by a couple of enthusiasts from Russian part of Live Journal users for themselves and their friends. But they heartily invited friends of their friends to join them.

We spent there 5 magnificient days, drinking local champaigns, beers and cognacs, separately and mixed sometimes. (:>) They are very cheap there yet of very high quality.

We also climbed surrounding hills, visited ancient Genoa fortress, walked along winter sea shore.

Here are few pictures we took there.

Making sturgeon shashlyk for a New Year's party:

Winter sea:

Retired Antonov 24 as a playground:

Beautiful landscape:

Ancient Genoa fortress:

Empty beaches:

Present

2007-12-21T22:19:00.000+03:00

Yesterday we've got corporate gifts. Look at the daily planner, aluminum skins (like a 16G attendant class divider - yeah!)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

2007-12-21T21:02:00.000+03:00

My dear friends! Let me just wish you Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! See you next year! Stay warm and keep in touch!

Meetings with the Boeing folks

2007-12-09T17:23:00.000+03:00

Last week I was running meetings with two Boeing persons who visited Sukhoi Civil Aircraft Company for consultancy session. You probably know that Boieng is one of the first partners of Sukhoi at the Superjet 100 project.

For obvious reason I didn't take part in any of the previous sessions. This time it was all about Customer Engineering and Customer Introduction processes so it was suppposed that I would be one of the participants from Sukhoi side. But so happened that I was almost the only one for the most of the time.

I was definitely happy to be involved in that activity and meet people from Boieng. Although I never worked with either of these two, we found a couple of common colleauges. Just great!

At home

2007-11-30T18:33:00.000+03:00

What is really great about my new job is that I was at home today at as early as 6pm. OK, normally, I'm at home at 7:40 pm, which is still good. At my previous work in Moscow Boeing office 7 pm was a peak of my working day activity.

Yes, I started later when at Boeing, say, at 10 or even 11 am, but I was never able to productively use those "extra" 3 hours in the morning.

Dmitry's gonna bring his wife to the States

2007-11-25T12:41:00.000+03:00

Well, my wife and me have been dreaming of visiting USA together for some time. My wife has valid US visa, so do I. Our original intent was her to accompany me during one of my business trips. But, heck, this is not that easy to arrange, especially when you're limited in funds and just redeeming your frequent flyer miles.

Just few days ago I made a reservation for our Moscow - New York - Moscow flight. Dates are as follows:
Moscow - New York on February 14th, 2008
New York - Moscow on February 25th, 2008

Actually, we're going to stay in NY from Feb 14th till Feb 18th only and spend the rest of the trip in Seattle area. I remember some of my Boeing friends already proposed me to host us during our staying. That's for what friends are!

My way

2007-11-17T00:13:00.000+03:00

My previous work was located just 2 blocks from Kremlin. Our building was on Tverskaya street, busy-busy all the time. Cars honking, street musicians playing, people chatting loudly, it was noisy and I didn't feel myself at work. Check out the photo below (sorry for its quality, I took it with my cell phone built-in camera). This is the way to my current office after recent snowfall. Clean air, very quiet surrounding, ahhh, I love it!

Comics strip about me

2007-11-10T21:06:00.000+03:00

Um... well... not exactly about me. As some of my friends probably know I'm a Dilbеrt comics fan. I even translate them into Russian and post them in my Russian-language blog time to time. No wonder everyone's in love with these comics: They so truely describe our everyday reality of cubicle inhabitants.

When I saw today's strip I couldn't help myself to shouting: Heck! This strip was exactly about me!

P.S. I'd provide a link to the official comics site if it wasn't worthless since every strip is being kept there for just one month. So let it be kept here for a longer period. (:>)

Trip report

2007-11-06T22:27:00.000+03:00

Last Monday I was doing paperwork for my recent business trip into the States. It was quite easy, easier than the same procedure at the Boeing.

And here's the reason for this: I was accountable for just airplane tickets and hotel accomodation. No TER, no credit card slips and receipts.

For those who travel abroad just once or relatively seldom no company card is being issued. Those who travel regularly are given with the card. I'm supposed to receive mine by my next business trip to the States.

We're given with some amount of money before the business trip. The biggest part is usually designated for the hotel and we're accountable for it. The rest of the sum is our per diem and we're absolutely free to spend it just like we want to. That's why no restaurant receipts, no TER, no such hassle.

Oh, wait! There's one really funny thing. All receipts we submit to our accounting department must be translated into Russian! (:>)

Flight logs

2007-11-04T23:48:00.000+03:00

I was always dreaming about keeping my flight logs somewhere in the web. Fine, but what if I'm too lazy to even search for them? (:>) Just today I occasionally found pretty handy internet-service at flightmemory.com so I decided to sign up and log all my flights. Total count is just 34 flights which is really modest value.

Anyway, here's the linked picture with my brief statistics:

Back home

2007-10-26T23:08:00.000+04:00

I'm back home.

It was very tiresome flight from Seattle to Moscow via JFK. In contrary to Boeing I fly coach class all the way. Oh, boy, that was tough. Five hours SEA to JKF, plus nine from JFK to SVO, both in fully loaded economy, both in the middle seat.

Two hours prior to landing in Moscow we've got a medical emergency. One woman not to far from my row got badly low blood pressure. F/A's called thru PA if there were any doctors on board. Two men approached and helped to treat that poor lady to the very landing. I was afraid that an emergency landing would required, but we continued to Moscow.

We were late from Seattle for a good hour "due to crew" as the gate information board said. Due to this fact we had just 30 minutes for the connection in JFK. Due to this fact my suitcase was not loaded from plane to plane and did not show up on the luggage belt in SVO. I addressed to Delta representatives and they informed me that they got a confirmation that my suitcase will be delivered on the next day. I filled in an appropriate form with my contact info for the home delivery.

I'm looking forward to come back soon and see you again, my friends.

What are the friends for?

2007-10-22T19:02:00.000+04:00

Yesterday I was in the very nice house of my friend Talia and her husband Horacio. My another friend Tom arrived a bit later with his wife Shannon and little cutie Alexa.

Here we are: Tom, Dima and Talia

It was a great pleasure to meet my friends again! I got back! Just as I promised them in July when I announced about my move.

P.S. I'd really love to meet all of you, my friends (Eric, Steve, Russ, Doug et al) but I'm on a very short trip here this time. As Russ says: There's always next time. :-)

2 pics

2007-10-20T07:21:00.000+04:00

There're [2] pictures of me taken here inWinston-Salem, NC at В/Е Aerospace.

CDC is the big conference room with a big table, overhead projector, teleconference devices and seat samples.

Sukhoi Civil Aircraft + Aeroflot + В/Е Aerospace = ?

Dmitry arrived

2007-10-17T16:32:00.000+04:00

Hi to all, this is a short notice to let you all know that I'm currently in the United States. I'm in Winston-Salem, NC right now and I will stay here until this Saturday. I will move to Lynnwood, WA where I will stay in Residence Inn on the Alderwood Mall Parkway till Wednesday's evening.

I'm looking forward to seeing lots of my old buddies. Hopefully, we'll have enough possibilities to meet. Stay tuned and keep in touch.

Weekend in Berlin

2007-10-08T23:07:00.001+04:00

Hello, my friends! My wife and I had a wonderful week-end in Berlin!

Me and the TV tower:

Parking :-)

My wife with the Berliner bear (scarf!) with the modern governement building nicknamed "washing machine" on the background:

You are leaving the American sector (Checkpoint Charlie):

Sorta spotting

2007-09-30T20:03:00.000+04:00

What a wonderful Sunday it was today! I decided to go to the Sheremetyevo's spotting point. This is a place under the glissade, so the landing planes will fly something like 30 yards above you. I'm actually not a spotter yet, but I love aiplanes! So we went there and spent there a couple of hours. I was not taking pictures, I was just looking. Here are just a couple of pictures of us with the planes in the background. Sorry, my dear Boeing friends, there's an Airbus above me. There were not a lot of Boiengs landed. Uh, one of these few was gorgeous KLM's B737-900.

Well, meet my wife and me!

No regret

2007-09-29T18:14:00.000+04:00

Yesterday I visited one of my ex-colleague at Moscow Boeing office. Actually, I didn't get upstairs to the office itself, we met nearby the building. While I was waiting him to go down I also met some other people from my previous work.

I talked to them, talked to my ex-colleague. And you know, I don't regret that I changed work. They seemed very tired and exhausted, with no enthusiasm and optimism. Whoa, it was like to see myself from aside. I was the same just a couple of months ago.

It was around 6 pm on Friday night, I have already finished and was on my own time, while they were in the peak of their work. I know that everything we do is for our beautiful plane's sake. I know that they work to please their bosses by fulfilling the next Excel spreadsheet and having another meaningless meeting.

Oh, wait. It's not everything OK to me, too. The main thing is that I left for less money. I know, it's hard to believe, but I'm paid 1-point-5 times less now than at the Boeing. Plus-or minus-I've got no medical insuarance plan at Sukhoi.

But what I do have is real work. And hope for the raises :-)

Roll out

2007-09-26T21:00:00.000+04:00

You know, not only Boeing pompously rolls out its brand new planes. Today Sukhoi had a ceremony celebrating the roll out of the newest Russian SuperJet100 aircraft at the final assembly plant in Komsomolsk-on-Amur on the Russia's Far East. This was very exciting event for all of us!

I recommend you to pay you attention to the airliners.net Sukhoi Superjet-100 Roll Out Count Down Thread. There's a whole bunch of pictures and links that are worth to see.

My first calendar event

2007-09-20T20:34:00.000+04:00

Sorry guys, I'm still keeping low my blogging. One of the main reasons is that I endure time deficit despite the fact I no longer stay until 10 pm at the office. I dedicate my evenings mostly for watching TV or just chatting with my wife. Or, for reading news, aviation discussion boards etc.

But yesterday there one thing happened that I must to commemorate here in my blog. It was my first calendar event! I still don't take part in weekly meetings, so I din't have anything in my calendar so far.

And here it is, screenshot of my calendar with the first and only meeting.

Looks very funny for me. I used to have at least couple of meetings every day. But I'm more than sure that I will have approximately the same situation here too, sooner or later.

Ah, yes, e-mails. I miss piles and piles of messages in my Inbox. Normally, I've got something like 40 or 50 messages daily when I was working for Boeing. I have just one or two now. But again, the time will come, I'll have 100 messages every day here at Sukhoi.

Three weeks have gone

2007-09-16T14:29:00.000+04:00

Sorry guys, I'm not posting very frequently.

Well, it's three weeks away from my first working day at Sukhoi Civil Aircraft. The first wave of enthusiasm flushed away, it's time for more sober and realistic outlook.

No, I didn't get disappointed that I changed Boeing for Sukhoi. I know that in a long run experience and knowledge that I gain at Sukhoi will be unique and priceless. Definitely, they will become my most valuable achievements.

OK, I'll be honest to you, yes, I sometimes feel nostalgia for my Moscow Boeing office. But, that's very natural, judge to yourself: At the Boeing I knew everything, I knew everyone, everyone knew me. Everything was predictable and stable. It's all upside down here: I know a bit more than nothing, I know very few people, even less know me. But I clearly understand this situation, so I can control my emotions.

Currently, I'm trying to jump into the running train with all of my luggage. I'm still not fully engaged into my department's activity. Well, no one would require impossible things, but I'm supposed to be experienced enough to do my job. And my position is actually Senior Interior Suppliers Coordinator.

Finally, I believe I will overcome this as I gain more and more confidence in what I do.

What do I do

2007-09-08T20:31:00.001+04:00

I bet most of you wonder what Dmitry does at his work? OK, I'll tell you. But first, let me briefly describe our company's orgchart. Mainly, Sukhoi Civil Aircrafts Company consist of Directorates. They, in their turn, are divided into Departments.

There's a Directorate which is responsible for the whole process of aircraft deliveries. There are three departments in this Directorate, and one of them is the Customer Introduction Department. That's where I work.

I'm very glad and proud to work in this department, actually, this was my dream for a couple of recent years. You can see now why I traded-off Boeing for Sukhoi.

My department is responsible for the customer introduction process. We have customer engineering department here, too, but they're in charge for more general things like options management, maintaining configuration specification manuals etc.

My current assignment is to coordinate technical requirement to LOPAs with our interior design engineers. I'm also is responsible for cretaion of an enterprise standard for LOPA process flow. And... for the whole customer introduction process, too. :-)

Despite Sukhoi Civil Aircrafts is not brand new company and is ready for the first SSJ 100 rollout we're still missing full definition of some processes, like customer introduction. That's why I feel myself challenged and right in my place. And I'm very greatful to the Boeing company, because everything I know I have learnt at Boeing.

Feel the difference

2007-09-06T22:59:00.000+04:00

The most notable difference is relative dimensions of picture and name, at Boeing's badge your name prevales.

First week

2007-09-01T21:33:00.000+04:00

Wow, first week of my employment flew so fast. You know, there were no time to warm up, I was wholly involved into activity of my department. I took part in a technical meeting with Sukhoi Super Jet 100 customer, I was coordinating techical requirement to cabin layout drawings with our design department.

Something interesting happened on Friday. It was one of our employee's birthday. Few days before one lady collected some amount of money from every person. So, we had a birthday party. One thing really surpised me: Among juices and soda there was some wine. Yes, it was around 4pm, the end of the working day, but still, after Boeing's alcool phohibition it was very unusual for me.

Going out with old friends

2007-09-01T20:52:00.000+04:00

I've got a phone call from my ex-colleague on Wednesday. He told me that Kelly Croft, a lead engineer from Boeing was in Moscow. He proposed me to go out for a dinner together on Thursday.

I used to work with Kelly for a couple of years when she was at the position of 777 Crew Rest lead, so I gladily accepted that proposal.

Thursday after work I took Metro to the city center to meet Kelly, my ex-Boeing manager Anton B. and my another ex-Boeing manager Sergey M. who moved to Lufthansa Technik a couple of years ago. We met at Mariott Aurora hotel lobby, went down few blocks and stopped for the Ukrainian restuarant.

We had a very good dinner there, let me tell you. We had some pepper-and-honey vodka shots with a big choice of appetizers. All covered by delicious main course.

Ah, here's Kelly and I.

I'll be around

2007-08-28T21:30:00.000+04:00

Hey guys, remember, I was writing that I will be somewhere around even after moving to Sukhoi? Well, the odds are really good that I will find myself in Seattle soon! Preliminary dates are October 18th till 20th. Keep your fingers crossed, so will I do mine.

Day two

2007-08-28T20:17:00.000+04:00

Oh, day two. But let me hold you on for a second and add something to the yesterday's items.

Train that I use for commute is very convenient, indeed. But there's one thing that makes it not that perfect: The time-table. It runs just one or two times an hour, which make me stick to the time-table.

I forgot to mention that most of my co-workers are young people, some, including my boss, are younger than me. Which actually makes me feel really comfortable. But don't get it wrong: All these youngsters are not just drafters or newbies, not at all. They're all very important and knowledgeable.

I forgot to mention that there's no contract laborers at Sukhoi, we're all just employees. Ah, yes, we have badges here, but I was greatly surprised by the fact, that very few people wear them. Wearing your badge is not required here.

OK, now. I'm ready to tell you about my second day at Sukhoi. As soon as I arrived today we started to off-site technical coordination meeting with one of our customer's representatives. Naturally, I was mostly keeping silence and taking some notes, but I was absorbing every detail to get up to speed as soon as I can.

When we got back to the department I started to organize my notes I had taken at the meeting. I also felt that I could propose one improvement and my boss approached me in a second asking if I could propose any impovements on the item I was exactly thinking of. That became my first task.

I was also given by the local phone number and computer account. Ah, look at this baby-notebook. It is really cool, much lighter than my Boeing's Dell, but its keyboard is not very convinient, buttons are smaller (especially spacebar) and layed out somewhat strangely.

First day at work

2007-08-27T23:29:00.000+04:00

Yes, it finally happened! Today was my first working day at Sukhoi Civil Aircrafts. Surely, it is impossible to make up solid impression. But, I'll tell ya guys it was quite worth to move there. No, it's not better than Boeing, it's just a different and very promising story.

Sukhoi Civil Aircrafts company is located in three facilities which are really close to each other. One of them is leased from another famous Soviet aircraft design bureau, MiG. My building is a single-store renovated factory or something like this. There's construction work all over the facility.

We have a long corridor with doors to rather big halls. In their turn, halls are divided by light walls into cubicles just like at the Boeing or Moscow Boeing Design Center. The cubicle where I will be seating is for 7 people, I saw both, bigger and smaller ones.

I've been given with a tiny 12" Toshiba notebook. The funny thing is that I have not been given with the account yet, so my laptop was resting all the day.

Naturally, I was not performing any work today, it was mostly socializing, getting familiar with the co-workers and the facility etc., all the things people normally do at their first (and, sometimes every) day at the work.

My working hours will be 9am till 6 pm Monday through Thursday and 9am till 4:45pm on Fridays. The lunch break is 45 minutes long. There's no kitchen at our facility right now, but–remember, construction?–I was told there will be the one pretty soon.

I commute by the train, it's not a Metro, it's a suburban train which runs through the city and has few stops within the city borders. I was very lucky that one stop is close to the place where I live and the other one is close to Sukhoi.

Well, that's it for a while. I promise I will keep you updated, so stay tuned. If anyone has any specific questions (no trade secrets, please :), go shoot it, I'll try to do my best to satisfy your curiosity.

MAKS-2007

2007-08-24T23:46:00.000+04:00

I spent the whole day today at the MAKS-2007 (International Aviation and Space Salon).

I spent most of the day by the runway watching flights of various aircrafts, including different MiG and Su fighters and F-15. But everybody loved the French's Patrouille de France! They rrrrrrrrrocked! (Check out this YouTube video)

I also visited few pavilions to visit companies' exibitions. I attended both, Boeing (my former [sigh] employer) and Sukhoi (my new employer).

Believe it or not, but I didn't take a single picture! Why khaotically make unprofessional pictures when there's vast media coverage. (Official MAKS-2007 photos)

I got a sun-burn and total dehydration, I tired, got annnoyed of crowds, but finally I loved it.

Final update

2007-08-22T19:29:00.000+04:00

Finally, Sukhoi's HR department has my paperwork ready. They invited me to sign the contract and this happened just few hours ago today, on Thursday, August 23rd, 2007.

I'm officially Sukhoi Civil Aircrafts employee now!

We agreed that I will start my actual work at Sukhoi on Monday, August 27th, 2007.

I'm going to spend the whole Friday, August 24th at the Moscow Aviation and Space Salon, MAKS.

Unemployment

2007-08-20T21:27:00.001+04:00

I left Moscow's Boeing office on last Friday, August 17th and was going to start working for Sukhoi right from Monday, August 20th.

But I've got a phone call from Sukhoi on Friday. They were very sorry to say that they had not completed necessary paperwork so far (paperwork, again! :). They said that they would call me back on Monday to inform me about my paperwork progress.

OK, here's Monday and I've got another call from Sukhoi. They updated me that my paperwork needs to get signed by two more persons and it would be done by this Wednesday.

Well, all of a sudden I have few days of unexpected unemployment. I hope that Thursday would be my first day at Sukhoi.

Disappearing paperwork

2007-08-20T15:15:00.001+04:00

There were two funny things related to my retirement paperwork.

I'll briefly describe the whole process, how we do this in Russia. Approximately two weeks prior to desired retirement date an employee needs to hand-write an application. Then it should be signed by two persons: employee's manager/supervisor and Director, Administration. Then the signed application goes to the HR department which undertakes further necessary steps. Soon after that the employee gets so-called List of departing employee to 'clear the take-off'. The employee needs to sign it off in different departments (accounting, IT, library, administration, security etc.) to make sure that all company property is returned back.

Well, here are the two funny things that happened to my paperwork. First, my signed application for retirement disappered from HR departement. They had to ask me to re-write it. Second, I accidently shredded my List of departing employee when it was almost completely signed. Everyone here says that was a sign that something went wrong with my retirement. Everyone expects me get back soon.

Season greetings

2007-08-18T13:48:00.000+04:00

My dear Boeing friends,

When I sent out my farewell message on last Wednesday I assumed that there would be few responses with wishes and congratulations. But I was more than surprised to get so many warm messages from you. I thank you very much for that.

And the winner is... OK, I won't disclose the name of that person but rather quote the respond that almost made me cry.

Dmitry,

Wow. This news hits pretty hard. Of course my first reaction is real sadness that you are leaving Boeing. You've been our voice of BDC for so long it's hard to imagine moving forward without you. Certainly there is much about employment at BDC I don't know but, knowing what a dedicated and thoughtful person you are, I conclude you must have received–and deserved–a very good opportunity with Sukhoi.

More than a great engineer, employee and leader you have been for many of us the human connection across our cultures. Your brilliance and generosity in that regard is really special and I hope you will continue to have the opportunity to do that.

Thanks for starting the blog. I'll enjoy checking in to see how things are going.

Best of luck!

Exit only

2007-08-15T08:41:00.000+04:00

Yesterday I passed an exit interview. HR manager invited me to have a 'half hour talk' which turned into an hour and five minutes conversation.

Definitely it was very useful for my company. Or, at least, I hope that it will be useful for my company to know what's going on in our office.

But that interview was useful for myself, too. I put in words some things that I had been only feeling, I made some interesting conclusions about myself, I kinda saw myself as others might see me.

Kick-off

2007-08-14T10:19:00.000+04:00

OK, now. I'm going to run this blog to keep track on my post-Boeing career. Mainly it is to stay in touch with my Boeing friends. New friends are always welcome.

Two things:

1) I encourage everyone to be an active reader and post big and meaningful comments;

2) I encourage everyone to correct my English, everything: style, grammar, spelling. Theoretically, I'd pay few bucks for valuable corrections.