Lol, I was wise for leaving before I got too old to enjoy life on the outside 😁
I took that picture in the switch 45 minutes before I walked out the door on my last day of work. I was second shift, but went in at noon so I could say goodbye to some day shift people. I was supposed to leave at 8, but my supervisor decided to kick me out at 7:15. He said he felt bad making hang around any later, but the reality is, I wanted that time to close out my 35 years with the company. I pretty much got hurried out the door in about 2 minutes. There was one person in the cafeteria that I got to hug, but that was about it. The 5ESS Switch is still up and running, and they do receive work for it, but nothing like the heyday. In the 90’s, it was their pride and joy. The company has over 100 shops worldwide, but I worked in shop 01, headquarters for the whole time. I still visit them every couple of months, and my supervisor invited me to the second shift Christmas Party in December. I loved the company and the family that runs it, my job as an electronic technician, and the people I worked with.
Lol, I have all the information!
But nobody wants it 😩
Lol, here’s a picture of me on my last day in the switch room in front of one of the 5ESS cabinets. That stuff is old, but I’m older, lol 🤣
Ah, ye olde 5ESS 💕
I worked “back in the switch” in the’90s. I loved it in there. We’d get circuit boards from the phone companies, we’d test them and repair them. What I liked most about the switch is that it was real phone company equipment. It was like a locker room with several versions of the switching system. We had to know where the boards went and how to test them. It was a lot more interesting than running the same stuff all the time. We also needed to be able to repair them. Fun times. Of course, wireless took over and most of us worked on cellular equipment sent in from the field. Even that equipment changed over time 3G/LTE/5G… At the time I left, the 5ESS switch was still running, but hardly anyone worked on it. On my last day, I wondered in to look around and took a few pictures. I’m impressed that you took notice 🙂
