The best laid plans of mice and men...

I got my marching orders today. The job is mostly finished and all but a handful are leaving. I fly out tomorrow night. I was given two options the first being a layoff and the second a transfer. I went for door number three... I am taking a few weeks off on LOA and then I am flying back to work at CNRL. They still don't have flights but hopefully will by then. I am ok with this as I am glad that they wanted me back and the superintendent Brad will be there by the time I arrive so all good. He is a good guy to work for so I look at this as a bonus. I am also looking forward to the time off. I need some quality time with my wife before the summer ends and she heads back to the classroom. We have some projects at the house to look after and maybe we can get away camping together. Although I have a week off every two weeks the time is so short and I spend most of it sleeping. Besides, I want to do some writing as I have a short story cooking around in my brain that I would like to shake out of there and onto paper. It has been a good job all told. I got my feet wet in the business. I survived both -40 degree weather as well as +40 degree weather. I only missed 1.5 days of work in that time. I was promoted from pre-apprentice to 1st year apprentice. There were some bumps along the way but I will survive them. In fact I will be a better Ironworker because of them. Along the way I paid my bills and made some friends while at the same time gaining membership in the union hall. All good. Despite being really happy to be leaving I will miss some things too. I will miss meeting the gang in brass alley in the morning. I will miss the joking around On the bus with my scaffolder friends. I will miss the Wednesday Prime Rib dinners. And I will miss the opportunities I missed and likewise the friendships which didn't work out. But as I said, all in all it was a good run and I am determined to do better in the next run. So for the next few weeks my writings will be irregular at best. But once my vacation is done and I am happily ensconced in my new job things will return to normal and I will let you know what life at CNRL is like. Ciaou for now! :)