Sore feet

....does not begin to describe my poor tootsies. I really wish I had a nice pail of cool water to soak them in. I think I'm going to get a pedometer and see how far I walk in a day.
Oh yeah, I started my day with a one mile walk, LOL. If only I'd have known I could have saved myself the trouble.
So, my first full day at work, basically no training, and I pretty much did everything from checking people out (easy), checking people out with rooms on hold (next easy) and checking returners who were on the list (next easiest) to people that aren't on the list or first timers. Oh yes, and I did a room check. First I did probably 2/3 as a tag along with one of the guys, then I did the remaining 1/3 on my own. So pretty much covered all the residential areas, including the trailers which are not on the map because they are only "temporary", however have apparently been here about 3 years. Room checks have to be done when the system says one thing (like the room should be vacant, or the person has checked out) and the camp attendants (the cleaning crew) saying something else, (like someone is sleeping in the bed, or there are belongings in the room). Then we (front desk staff) have to physically go and check the room and depending what we find, there are various courses of action to take. Luckily I did not come across any bodies. I did get my first trip outside today though, going from one area to another outside to get a breath of fresh air instead of taking the interior walkways. Well, the trailers aren't connected by walkways so I guess you have to go outside for those anyway. I did get my first glimpse of one of the big dozers....these dozers have a bucket that holds 100 tons of earth. And it puts it in a giant truck that holds four of those scoops, or 400 tons. The tires on these trucks are 11 feet tall and hold 3,000 pounds of pressure. I heard that each tire costs between $60,000 and $70,000 and when one blows it sounds like an explosion. I got kind of a very general idea of the process here. Once they dig up the sand, it goes through several types of "spinning" and crushing to separate the bitumen from the sand. Then the bitumen gets pumped by pipeline to another facility not too far from here, where it undergoes "diluting" which I guess if further processing, then gets sent back here. I think when it leaves here, it's diesel, but I'm not entirely sure about that. The actual process parts are just now getting operational. At my orientation on Tuesday, we were told they've put about 80,000 barrels through so far. So now the construction crews are moving out, and the operations crews are moving in.
Anyway, I think this is long enough for one day....later!