Back to the End!

After flying out I was actually kind of looking forward to a good couple of weeks working and earning money. For the first time ever I have been put into a Supervisor Suite in the east part of the camp and I love the room. It is wider than the normal ones and has a double bed! After lousy sleeps in the single beds this has been a nice switch. But how long will it last for? The boys on the backshift have been saying that this job is almost over. They are saying that the welding is almost done and that there is no connecting left for the Ironworkers it only some reaming, bolting and impacting. It makes things feel a bit ominous. I know we have the Syncrude job coming up but it is always a little sad when things come to an end. Already there are guys like my curmudgeonly welder friend Shane who have left and taken a leave but who we will see a month down the road at Syncrude. That is the nature of this work. We come together by the chance of the project. We make friends. And when the project ends we say good bye and move on as the cycle repeats itself. Down the road, if we stay on it long enough, we will see our friends again on other projects where we have often randomly been thrown. I am wondering if there will be a top-out ceremony. That is where as the last beam is raised we honor our union and the others involved in the project by raising a beam draped with our union flag and some other things. It would be kind of cool to participate in one of those this early in my career. It's hard to say what will happen but it would be fun to be part of. I have mentioned many times the value of routine a d how it keeps us stable on these long 'away' stretches. This sort of thing, ending one job and moving on to another in another camp, forces change in our routines and so people will probably get more and more agitated as the job closes down. But a lot of us are going to Syncrude and that purports to be a three year plus project. It has camps that are less restrictive and it is a lot closer to town. That means that when this one is over it shouldn't take too long for us to find our. Esso routine and rhythm. Oddly enough though I am going to miss this place and all the quirky unique things about it! Post Script: the good folks at blogspot have changed a lot of things a out how our blogs are posted. As a result things like having only one very long paragraph is an example. Please bear with me while I figure out these changes or simply move my blog to a new location. Mae culpa!