Day 83: Summer is over and Winter is knocking

   It has been some time since by last post and I can account this to the summer and the wonderful group of people I am lucky to call my friends. When I first came to this job back in May I had an idea that I would just be going to work everyday and then spend my evenings at the gym and then off to work and repeat for 20 days. I never imagined that my social life at camp would be busier than it is at home and that the group of people I am lucky to call my friends would such a great group. For the first real time in my life I played on a slow-pitch team, always thinking it looked like such a boring sport coming from watching baseball on TV, and it was the one of the best decisions I made this summer. Not only am I not as horrible as I thought I would be at it, besides my throwing that still sucks big time. It is actually one of the greatest group things to do. Everyone is such a big team player and even the other team is cheering for you. It seems like everyone seems to forget about the actual score and just realizes we are there to just have a good time. Even the games where everyone showed up to play and I only played a few innings just be in the bleacher's with all the other spectators cheering was quite the experience in it self. Besides baseball we had there was lots to do after work with summer, a couple turnarounds ago I was luck enough to have a few great buddies from back in Cloverdale come and join me in the Mat, which has been just fantastic. In all life up here this summer has been one of my best. People always ask me when I am at home how life up here is and how I like it, and I always respond with the same answer, Fantastic! Sure there are always things that I hate and at the end of every twenty days I am more then eager to get home but there is always that part of me that kinda just wants to stay. Sometimes because being up here is such an escape from all the drama and reality that going home brings and also because I think I might actually enjoy being up here. Even at work there is ways to have fun and not fall to the monotony. Wither it be hanging out with Team Turnt Up! or just getting a really hard task to get done by the end of the day.
    My life has changed a lot, both for the better and worse, since I first decided to take a job up here in the middle of May. For one I think being up in camp truly expands the people you are close to or just in touch with and with that there sadness and happiness is expressed up on to you. So rather than the hundred or so people I hear from or see back home my circle has now been expanded ten fold so everyday it feels like something unbelievably exciting and happy happens and then the next someone has died or is really sick. Because of this even more then ever I want to live my life to the fullest which I know sounds really cliche but life is short and if we don't take close our fingers and catch it all it might just slip right through. So in my new 'enlightened' self I have decided to take drastic turn and take a job in Australia through UBC. I know big crazy news that is unless you follow me on Facebook which I would assume everyone reading this does.
   So with just two weeks left inside my Atco I figured I would slowly transfer this blog into a Life with Tanner: Backstage Passes to Insanity... minus grammar. Hope you all enjoyed the ride and I hope you board the next train out with me. I will try and get a few more entries in before the end of my stint in Kitimat.
                                                                                    Your one and only, Tanner

Day 34 : Numbers

                     I have now been up in Kitimat for 34 days of work, worked 383 hours, and walked an average of 15km per day totaling an estimated 510km in steel toe boots. These are the numbers and every day they keep getting bigger and bigger. That is except one number, some may say the most important one, the days of work left until I can come home. Numbers are important to me when I work they serve as a means to distract my mind from some of the mind numbing task s or an escape from the politics. Today my crew batched out 180 bags of grout so as we were working away doing batch after batch I slowly worked out exactly how much weight in materials we would be making that day. So each bag of grout is 25kg which worked out to be 4500kg of grout. Added to each bag of grout is 4l of water which ways out at 1kg per liter so that is 720kg of water. Totalling a massive 5220kg of grout produced and handled all by hand. Not only did this math help me pass some of the time well producing the grout at the end of day it also helps the guys put an actual number to the amount of work they did that day. So the most important number of the day….3 the days until I come home. In the meantime I try enjoying my time and taking in everything that Kitimat has to offer. So yesterday was Canada Day and although we all had to work Sarah, Shane, Kate and I all decided we would take a trip into town and see how Kitimat chooses to celebrate the birth of our great nation. We started it off with a trip to Mr. Mikes, the classiest place in town, where I enjoyed a wonderful Oscars Lobster sirloin. We then headed off to the local rec area where all the big festivities were being held but Sarah’s feet were really bothering her so Shane and her decided they would head back to camp. This left me and Kate to head down to the rec center. Now a little preface to these festivities, we had heard from a few locals that they were offering $50 helicopter rides around Kitimat all day. So both me and Kate having never been in helicopter before decided that would be priority number one. Unfortunately for us just as we arrived to the baseball diamonds to see the helicopter in were informed by the helicopter lady that this arriving flight was there last of the night. We were lucky enough to get a nice selfie of the helicopter landing behind us though. Being a little depressed with our unfortunate luck with the helicopter and the time getting late we decided it would be best for us to head back to camp with some help from some fine gentleman that Kate played baseball with. When we arrived back at camp we overheard some people talking about some fireworks that we would be able to see from the big tent at camp so we decided to head over there and call Shane and Sarah to join us. So even though it wasn’t the big celebration in Cloverdale and Brad’s 7 layer dip Canada Day in Kitimat ended pretty well. So that is really all I have to talk about today but I leave you with a picture of the only accessible piece of greenery on site the one tree. During breaks people sit under it chat, smoke and eat their food. It is weird being in place where there is such an abundance of wildlife all around you yet we have next to nothing on site.

                                                                                                                Sincerely, Tanner (I’m coming home)

Day 28 : The Art of Oiling a Boot

                Living in a one hundred seventy six square foot room really limits the amount the activities that are possible. Mostly it is just sleeping, hygiene, computer/TV, and thinking but at least once every week I break out my boot oiling pad and oil and shine my boots up nice for the next day. For those unaware the oiling of the boots is not for an aesthetic reason but it helps preserve the life of the leather and prevent it from cracking. People always say you can learn a lot about a person from their shoes. I believe the same goes for construction and their work boots. I can learn what trade a person might be by looking at their boot; if there boots are flat soled and made of reddish leather then they are most likely an Ironworker, Boilermaker, or Scaffolder because they are required to wear flat soles to climb the I beams; If their boots have a shield over the laces they are most likely a trade involved in welding such as Welders and Millwrights; and if there boots are covered in certain materials you can usually identify them by that material. For me when I see a person with a well-oiled pair of boots I am inclined to think that they are more likely to have pride in their work because they have sense to take care of their tools. I think this appreciation for a well taken care of pair of boots can be rooted back to my father. For as long as I can remember my Dad took pride in the foot wear he wore. I remember him coming home from work some days and after dinner he would sit down by his boots and oil them all up for another day of work. He didn’t do this every day but as it became needed he would clean and oil his boots. My dad always told me that I have to learn to respect the things that I own and I should have the same respect for the things I don’t.  I guess this whole boot story comes back to my Dad and the things I remember when I shine my boots. The Sunday before last was the day I came back up to Kitimat but it was also Father’s day and he had to drive me. I feel kind of guilty for not being to give him the father’s day that deserves. All though sometimes we but heads this is the man that has made me into the man I am today and given me every opportunity to be the most I could be. He has given me way more second chances then I deserve and has not received the endless thanks or admiration that he deserves. He is the person I know I can always go to for advice and all too often favors. A privilege, I only came to realize this year, that he has no longer has; this I can only begin to fathom must be one of the worst things to go through. So to the man who gave me everything and asked for little in return I hope this makes up for having no card with your father’s day gift.

                                                                                                                            

                    Love Tanner, A lover of a well-oiled boot

Day 27 : It's Tuesday Night And I Missed Dinner

                It’s Tuesday night at camp and I have just awoken after what was supposed to be a 20 min post shower nap. I am a man that enjoys a routine and I like to keep it that way at camp. Every day after work I take my boots and put them on my mat, I undress and grab both my towels, take a post work dump and take a five minute shower. After I finish this I usually put on some flip flops and text Sarah and meet everyone for some dinner in the dining hall. Post dinner is usually a trip to the gym or hanging out with my camp family playing pool or some other game. These things are important after work because if you just eat and go to your room it becomes hard to tell one day from the other and it all just seems like one long work day. Sometimes to make camp seem more like home I try and do things that I would be doing on that particular night back home. Tuesday is my favorite night of the work nights and usually my longest. Every Tuesday after work I would head down to Gamestars and play cards with friends until about nine o’clock or so and then head to some kind of food establishment and play some more card games and gamble for small amounts of money. So tonight in homage to the Tuesday nights I miss the most I had organized a gathering at the ‘Purple Helmet,’ the camp bar named for it having a purple roof and the fact that it always is such a sausage fest. But I guess my body had other plans.

                In other news we just had our B shift crew come back off turnaround which means that other Tanner is back to camp. Yep that’s right there is another Tanner up here! I know you’re just as surprised as I am. That is unless I have already mentioned it one of my previous posts in which case forget all this. I have met only heard of five other Tanners in my life so for me not only meeting another Tanner but one that would be working alongside of me and have his room only a few doors down from mine was pretty profound for me. That or there is just so little going on up here that meeting a person with the same name as you is a big deal; especially considering two of the other Tanner’s have dogs and one was a female porn star. Speaking of names you come across a lot here working with thousands of other people all with their names displayed on the front of their hard hats. One of the things I have come to earn from observing these names is that if I wanted my kid to work in construction I would name him Chris. Everyone and their dog up here are named Chris, not literally. It has become so bad that not only do you need to refer to them by their first and last name but also their trade. Another thing you come across is people who have completely abandoned their name for a nickname that they have been given, some people I still don’t know there real name all I know is that his hat says ‘Bird’ and that apparently people have been calling him that for fifty years, I assume it has something to do with his massive schnoz. Other nicknames come from what they used to do before camp or BC, like our material handler Barkley or as he is better known ‘Captain,’ he used to captain a boat. My nickname on the other hand was given to me after my lovely friend Sarah told people about a story I told her in confidence where I was nicknamed ‘Onion’ in high school leadership camp because I asked why people kept calling me onion when they told me that where in fact calling me youngin. So now everyone over the radio can here “Come in labourer foreman Onion.” Not that I mind, I have had worse nicknames in my time.

                To close off this post I’m going to leave you some pictures I have been collecting in my ongoing journey to use every porta-potty on site and take pictures of all the wonderful things people have to write and the detailed illustrations that accompany them.

                                                                                 And remember only you can prevent forest fires, Tanner (open to suggestions)

Day 23: KMP Political Battleground

     It’s funny how fast things can change at a job that seems to pride itself on its slow pace. Over the course of one meeting a man who has been a boss to many and friend to all, can be stripped of all power and the years of hard work it took to get him there erased from memory. A man who has nothing but compliments and smiles to offer can be brought to tears in a single text. And a simple congratulatory barbeque smokie can turn you into a 112 degree sweaty mess before you have time to make it to the end of the work day. At KMP we are taught that if we spend an extra five minutes to think about our task at hand to see if there is any way we can make it safer or most cost effective and general just smarter. It may take them ten years to build this smelter but it will be in these seconds and minutes where the actual stories and memories come from.

                When I came first came here to Kitimat to start my job with Bantrel Constructors I was assigned a foreman to report to for my tasks and to begin my training as a foreman. I was lucky enough to be put in with Tom. Tom is a KMP veteran, he has been here since Bantrel began there slow methodical takeover of this jobsite. Tom is a big man, about six foot four and built like a ‘brick shit house’, so to go up to him and greet him for the first is kind of intimidating. That is until the big burly handlebar mustache, camo pant wearing man opens his mouth with a warm chuckle and soft voice; seriously this man is what I imagine Santa Clause would be if he decided to open an army surplus store. But a man is not defined just by his appearance and demeanor but by his actions; and the actions Tom makes are what make him one of the more well respected and admired people within not just Bantrel but the whole of KMP. Anyways enough of the man and more to my story, but first a little background information. Within the world of construction there is system we use to identify what type of role each person plays in the field. To identify the people we use colored hard hats. In my company, Bantrel, everyone who is ‘on the tools’ wears a blue hard hat to indicate that they are a worker; if you are in some position of leadership you wear a white hard hat. This helps other people around site who may not know you help distinguish which person they can go to for direction or questions. In this case as Tom was a foreman, this is considered a leadership role so he wears a white hard hat. Well on this particular day I was heading back to our end of the sign out area near our office trailers and I saw Tom wearing a brand new blue hard hat. He had a smile on this face and was laughing with a few of the other guys from his crew so I thought nothing much of it other than it must be some funny joke he was pulling on the guys. Little did I know this was no joke, word had come from above that Tom was to be demoted back to just a labourer. I could not understand what in the world would compel the big man in the office to make this rash of a decision nor did I have the time to ponder it for the next thing I knew I was being called into our superintendent’s office and given Tom’s job. I was conflicted, on one side I was getting the promotion that I had been waiting for and on the other I was felt I was taking a job from a man who I thought very highly of. With little power and seniority to run I asked no questions and took the job and thanking my boss. When I finally found out the next day why Tom had been given his demotion I truly came to know the world that I was entering. Tom had not heeded orders and proceeded to probe why my superintendent’s wife was working as labourer yet she would spend no time in the field and only in the office and still receive the $8 more that labourers make over the office staff. Although it sounds a little extreme and I may be completely off course but I felt almost like I was entering the world of Frank Underwood. Only my political battleground wasn’t Washington DC but rather the Kitimat Modernization Project.

                In the wake of Tom’s demotion and three other foremen going on turnaround I was left with one other foreman and fifty two labourers to take charge of. The other foreman left me was a man named Andy. Andy hails from Uganda and has now spent his last five years in Canada working up here in Kitimat. He has had the occasional chance to go home and see his family but for the most the man is a working machine and has prior to my start only had 3 days off since the middle of January, don’t tell work safe. Andy, like Tom, is very pleasant man to work with. He is telling you what a great job you’re doing and always is happy to chat and tell you what a wonderful day it is to be here and working. A man without sadness, that was until a single text message turned a man I had only seen express good wishes and positive encouragement into a grown man weeping under our lone tree on site.  Andy’s mother had passed away from a heart attack in the middle of the night. I wished I could have captured a picture of him under the tree, not for the internet points but too show how much can change in the matter of a minute. One, we are talking about what a great job some of the guys are doing with cleanup and the next the African Mr. Rogers is sitting under a tree crying. Once Andy had gotten a little more composed he told me was going to leave for the day and his words, “Tomorrow new day Tanner, beautiful new day.” For the rest of the week you could tell something was bothering Andy but he still made every effort to make sure that his mood was not going to affect your day and he would even try and brighten it up if you were feeling down about it.

                After a wonderful week home seeing everyone I could and spending way to much of my newly earned money it was time to fly back up to the wonderful world of Kitimat. Before I had left for my turnaround Bantrel had earned there supposed one million man hours of work without a time lost injury. This basically means that if you were too injured to work your normal job you would do a light duty job all so some big wig could get his bug cushy bonus from the executives. So in celebration for this the company decided to throw the work force a big barbeque that would be split up into four separate times to cooperate with peoples turnarounds. Great for us we have one hour of paid BBQ time. What they forgot to tell me was that if you go and eat one those big smokies from the BBQ you would find yourself almost unable to finish the days of work and sent to the camp medical doctor with a fever of 112 degrees and an angry bathroom mate. Yep you think being sick at home is a shitty deal try it with one ply toilet paper, it is not a fun world.

                Well that is going to be all for now it is almost midnight and I really was trying to finish this earlier but I went out and played floor hockey for way too long to get this finished at reasonable hour. I miss you all and I will try and fill another entry tomorrow as a shit storm is currently flying through camp.

                                                                                                Love Tanner, I used paragraphs!!

Day 8 : Father Bob and Payday

                It has been 10 days since I left Vancouver for the great white north up here in Kitimat and I must say, “I miss home!” On the day of my leaving I was scrambling to grab so many things to get ready for camp that I didn’t really get the chance to stop and think about some of the things I might want up here that they don’t have. For example, although this project is worth billions of dollars we cannot seem to dish out the little bit extra for some proper toilet paper. And you may be thinking sure I deal with that at work and so on, but have you ever dealt with it at home and for all your toilet paper needs for a straight period of time. Not to mention that the food here makes for even more frequent trips to the bathroom. I also would like a pillow that didn’t feel like it was stuffed with the toilet paper we just discussed. But most of all I miss home and the people that comes with it. I miss my dog, I miss my family, I miss Gamestars, and I miss my friends. As replacements I have made a camp family; standing at the head I have Father Bob who is another foreman up here for the mason’s and has taken me under his wing showing me the ins and outs of life at KMP; I have a camp sister, Sara, who I eat every meal with and is probably my best friend I have made up here; I have several camp brothers who look out for me and go too town with me when we tire of camp food; I even have a creepy camp uncle who is just straight up a creepy dude all the time, but he likes to eat his meals in close proximity to me and Sara. After dinner is usually alone time, unless there is a hockey game on, which means I go to the gym and back to my room. Now usually at home I would spend my week nights before bed going on reddit, but in camp we have a very strained internet service and find it more frustrating than entertaining to go on the internet. Luckily I find solace in the two terabytes of movies and TV shows that I have procured completely legally. Anyways, enough of what I miss and my attempts at filling the voids; today is Thursday, which at KMP means we all got paid today. To me this doesn’t really mean much to me besides the fact that my bank account now looks a little healthier. Though for the other people here it means out to town and get plastered and whatever else they decide to partake in. And this sucks because as I made clear in my last post the walls of an Atco are not exactly the Great Wall and that makes for some loud noises just before midnight, if you don’t badge back into camp by midnight you are not allowed to work the next day until ten am, but such is the life of a camp worker. I leave you tonight with a picture from one of the over two hundred shitters on site and the message boards within.

                                                                                                For ever yours, Tanner ( Miss you )

Day 8 : Assquake Roommate

A few posts ago I wrote about the people I work with and how essentially it was like they had gathered all the class clowns and loudmouths and put them all in one place. Well this statement rings even more true for the lunchroom. To give a little background the lunch room is essentially three big Atco trailers, like the one I am living in, that have been designed to serve as a cafeteria minus the food services and just fridges to keep your lunch in. In the middle there are six sections of table for people to sit and eat their lunch at. So like any normal person would I went and grabbed my lunch and decided to just sit down at a table and start eating but like everything else at camp this is not so easy because although this chair and place at the table may have seem unoccupied the people nearby informed me that it was just the opposite. So I picked up my lunch and looked for another spot, luckily one opened up next to my crew. I decided to voice my incident to my fellow workers and learned that the seat I so ‘rudely’ tried to assume was none other than Jerry’s and that only members of the operating engineers could sit at that section of table. I found this kind of weird and decided to press further and ask if this was some kind of site rule or just some lunch room bully shenanigans. Well apparently my crew members and the rest of the people at this side of the lunch room have handed over their Cojones. They said that because they have no red seal trade that they were a lesser people than the rest of the lunch room; it truly was a defeated people. At that moment it dawned on me this lunch room was like a microcosm of high school and the operators were the cool kids who got the best seat in the cafeteria; the ironworkers were the cool sporty kids that spent lunch in the gym; the welders, electricians, and millwrights were those fringe cool kids that still went to all the parties but never made that tight-knit group of populars; the carpenters, masons, and roofers were the stoner kids, the first-aid attendants and field engineers were the smart kids every cheated off but no one liked; and my labourers were the un-cool kids that no one cared about unless they thought they might come and shoot up the school, too soon? Although I would like to tell you I gave the boys an empowering speech that go down in history as a truly pivotal moment in trade relations I did not pull a Braveheart. But I did feel like they needed to know that just because our group was not as well educated or skilled in the building trades we play a crucial role in the building of our projects and that this was project was a team effort and we play a big part in that, and I meant it. On a less serious note I now have a roommate to share my bathroom with and now what it’s like to live next to a bathroom stall. You see, the thing about living in an Atco is that to try and make the most of the space they may have sacrificed the thickness, and in turn noise detention, of the walls. So sitting at my desk which is located next to the wall of my bathroom I have heard my new roomy drop one twice just while typing up this entry, and camp food does not make for necessarily solid or quite release of chocolate hostage; kind of throws off the typing a bit. Well I have a big pour of epoxy to handle tomorrow and still have to hit up the gym so this will be all for today.

                                                                                                                                Eat Fresh, Tanner (Labourer Braveheart)