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!!