Yesterday was an odd one sprinkled liberally with both good and bad. During our tool box talk the head Foreman dressed us down for what he perceived as slights made against a 40 year member who had parted ways with the company the day before. At the end of the talk I got his message and felt both tuned in and ashamed all at the same time.
The day started out very cold and so I was heavily dressed in anticipation. I hate being cold and especially hate having my fingers go numb which they did. I forgot to mention but during the morning meeting they had promised to have a barbeque for us at lunch and I wondered how thrilling that would be in the cold. Still, a BBQ is. BBQ and I looked forward to it anyway.
Of course you can't have a BBQ without propane and as an apprentice I was picked to get it down to the designated area. Not by my self of course but with big Mitch who is another apprentice. Mitch recently turned 19 which usually means the person lacks motivation but not Mitch. He comes from a cattle farm and is a great big farm boy who is used to working hard. So moving the propane with him wasn't too bad as the tank only weighed about 120lbs (100 of it being the gas) and Mitch did most of the lifting part.
On a site like ours where safety is of the utmost importance you can't just pick up the tank and carry it. As we needed to move it from the surge deck down to the ground and then across the road we took a dolly (hand truck) and strapped the tank into it. We then took it down the back stairs so we could avoid raising and problems from the safety folks. Bad choice I guess as all the site safety people from our company, from Krupp, from Fleur and from Imperial Oil were all asseming at the bottom of the stairs in order to do a safety walk and we didn't see them till we took the turn halfway down the stairs. I am guessing the the safe way to move propane down stairs IS in a dolly with a man above and a man below as we didn't even draw their attention much less get fired!
By lunchtime the weather had changed for the better. The sun was out and it was warm enough to leave the coat in the trailer and just wear a hoodie while standing in the line. Lots of us had happy smiles on our faces and the line was filled with laughter from the typical bawdy humor that is the norm with both iron workers and with welders. It was a nice way to lose some of the angst that starts to build up after almost 20 straight days of 10 hour a day work. To top it off they gave us extra time to eat so we were a little more relaxed.
As we don't have a field or picnic tables we a ate in our trailers. That is where the union stewart found me with his message that I had been 'redeployed' as a 1st year apprentice (same site) and was now making $4/hr more! Pretty good news indeed!
The rest of the day was fairly peaceful. I was nice and relaxed and focused on my grinding. The weather did the Alberta thing... it snowed, then was warm, then was cold, and then looked like rain was imminant. Typical and not distracting. This shift is winding down which is good. I am deep bone tired but will make it. And I will make it at an extra $4 per hour!
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