Ten Million Man Hours....

Yep, the project passed a milestone this week. They've worked ten million work hours with no lost time injuries. It's a very significant achievement in the oilsands. To celebrate, today the chef went all out with a special dinner. They served lobster tails, and carved sirloin steak, and some kind of fish and fancy potatoes and vegetables. And the desserts...oh my. I had a piece of red velvet cake that was as almost as good as any I've made :) And I heard the carrot cake, and the key lime cheesecake were equally as good. They also had to implement restrictions on the dining room, since whenever there was a special dinner, like at Thanksgiving, or other holiday, they would serve anywhere from 400-1000 more dinners than usual. They suppose that was because there are other people working on site that don't stay here, and they'd just stop off for dinner, then go back to their own camp, or town, or wherever they stay. Plays havoc on the food budget. Especially for a special event. Soon the card swipers will be in place, and if your badge beeps when you go through, you can't eat here.

We've also implemented a new procedure for walkdowns here, as a result of the deaths of the two workers in their rooms. Up until now, you could put a "Do Not Disturb" sign on your door if you didn't want service in your room, were making your own bed, etc. Housekeeping would not check these rooms. Well, they were required to enter once every three days. They've collected all the DND signs, and left notes that explain that each room must be entered every day. If you are sleeping in, and have your privacy lock on, the door will flash red. If you don't respond when the housekeeper knocks in the morning, a report will go to Security and they will come back and open the door. It may sound strange, but there are quite a few people who do not want housekeeping in their rooms, thus the signs. So I imagine there will be some upset people complaining about that in the next few days. I understand where this is coming from, and I hope they'll understand too.

We've been lucky with the weather as yet. It's cool, but sunny. I don't think I"m ready yet for the deep cold of real winter.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Well, my Canadian friends will understand this :)

I was pretty disappointed, I didn't get my turkey dinner today. I'm working either day shift, or split shift for 10 days while I'm covering for reservations, and today was a day shift. Means I didn't finish my day until 5:30, and by then the lineups on the main lines were half way back to the doors and growing longer by the second. I evaluated standing in line, or doing an alternate line, and decided I did not want to wait in line. Even for turkey and stuffing. And yams. I had jerk chicken from the healthy line. And a piece of pumpkin pie. No line up for dessert.

There was another death in camp last week. An older gentleman, apparently heart attack. A very well-liked member of that contractor's team, the other guys on his crew were pretty upset. Passed away in his room.

This week was more IT troubles. Cell phone service down again. Our software system down. Right in the middle of Friday checkins. It had been happening on and off for the day, so we were prepared, but still could have been a bit of a disaster. Hoping Monday's big check ins won't see another fail.

The weather here has been just a little cooler than "back home". The forecast calls for maybe some snow by Thursday, but the longer it holds off is fine with me. I actually got outside today, as we had a planned fire drill. And I did it right this time. I did not wait for the actual alarm, since now I know they don't actually set off the alarm. It was a nice sunny day, and with my big heavy fire warden coat and hard hat, I didn't even feel the chill in the air.

Oh, and visit with baby Abigail (and of course my daughter and son-in-law) was great. So nice to have a newborn to snuggle. They make funny faces ;)

Well, that's about all I can think of since I've been back. We've welcomed another new member to the team. He's got hotel experience, so that helps with someone new. Looks like I'll have a few extra days off for the Christmas holidays. I'll have Christmas off, and have to be back on New Year's Eve to work New Year's Day. Yay me!

Hopefully I'll find something interesting to report later on during this rotation.