I was walking back to my room this morning with two lunch bags stuffed to the brim with assorted gastronomic junk when I passed a small herd of Newfies in the hall. You can always to folks from the rock for several reasons. Firstly they are a very friendly lot unless pissed off (or sometimes when they are pissed drunk). Secondly they usually hang out with other people from the same province. But perhaps the main reason is because they speak so fast and with such an accent that you have no chance of understanding them.
This morning was no exception. The guy who was speaking said something like this: "Well hammuna dreuy fok n dat udder fokin yanner fok!" Did you get any of that? Me either. Which got me to thinking how many people here can barely be understood by the majority. Or maybe they are the majority. The fact is that here at Kearl being of international origin is really a common thing.
Let's face it, the conditions aren't exactly wonderful here or we would 't be paid so well to be here. It gets cold as a post-cruise swim from the Titanic here. And when it's not busy being hot it's either muddy, dusty or hot! Or maybe several of the above at the same time. The people that work here have to endure being generally outside for 10+ hours a day for 14-24 days straight. Add in the long and pointless bus rides that start and end each of those days. Recognize that we are a long way from our spouses and partners. And then consider the constant limestone dust ever present from the halls in the morning to the road into work and including the worksite. I think everyone up here is just a little crazy!
You recall in past posts I have mentioned my affection for outdoors related literature? Being up at Kearl reminds me a lot of the Robert Service poem 'The Law of the Yukon' which was written about gold prospectors from around 100 or more years ago. It starts: "This is the law of the Yukon and ever she makes it plain 'Send not your foolish and feeble, send me your strong and your sane'". The poem could be describing Kearl from nowadays except that as I said I think most people up here are a little bonkers. I'm just not sure if the were like that before they arrived or whether it affected them upon arrival.
On our crew we have several internationals from various parts of the world and with various levels of English. There is a guy from China originally and another guy from Vietnam. We have a Jamaican joining the crew today (he is transferring in from another crew) and there are several French guys crew. Various parts of Eastern Canada. The French guys generally speak English well but will speak French with each other. The Chinese guy hardly speaks English at all so tends to stay quiet most of the time. Finally the Vietnamese guy speaks slightly better English than the Chinese guy in that he can and does use the words 'shit' and 'fok' liberally in every sentence.
The head foreman of our crew is an experienced guy in working with crews of mixed origin. I came to realize that he pairs the guys whose English is still in the works with native Canadian speakers. I realized that he does this so that during toolbox talk in the morning he can ask the native Canadian speaker for the update on the team's progress.
Sometimes the communications issues can lead to some funny situations. One day the big Frenchman from our crew (I'll call him Jean for now) asked the Chinese guy how you say 'Nice car' in Chinese. The Chinese guy, not really understanding the question, responded 'Nisah car.' It was really pretty funny. But Jean, whose English isn't that good either, has since been saying: 'Nisah car' 20 times a day and is driving everyone else in the trailer nuts.
It doesn't matter where you come from when you are up in Kearl. The most important things are whether you pull your weight and whether you do a good job. If you can manage those things you will always be welcome here.
Hello and greetings from a fellow IW from
ReplyDeleteS.Louisiana. I discovered your blog this evening on the Boomers page on Facebook, someone posted about it, good stuff brother.
Lately, I have been noticing a lot of talk on that page about the opportunities for work up there. The lack of work for us down here, along with your blog has gotten me to begin seriously looking into the process of coming north. One question though, how do you think a fellow from the deep south with a very thick accent would fit in, purely on a human level, got the work part covered.
Stay safe up there and work smart.
Spudwrench73@Gmail.com
Thanks for your kind words Spudwrench! You would do fine up here. The most important thing here is your ability to work hard and to keep a positive attitude. If you can do those things it's a great place to work and your accent won't matter. Keep safe and work smart! :)
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