Just six more days to work and I'm on my way home! Wow, it's been crazy here, just crazy. Well in my little world, anyway :) Occupancy was unexpectedly high, then unexpectedly lower again. Short staffed again. Tim Horton's has no coffee for at least a week due to safety issues with the pots. They've had 3 pots in the last little while explode with hot coffee in them. Yesterday's caused a visit to the medic, as the staff got some splashed on her. She's ok, but no more coffee or steeped tea for at least a week until they can get all new pots in. You want to see cranky people.....yikes. Of course the tea made with bags and hot chocolate and ice caps and of course all the baked goods are still available, but let me tell you, when I went by this morning on the way to the gym, there was nobody there. Usually the line stretches right down the hall almost to the gym door.
Speaking of the gym...Ed has started a cardiovascular tracking program. Those of us that walk/jog/run/bicycle can track our progress to the Ft. McMurray airport. 100 km from here, or 1,200 laps. Considering I'm doing 38 whenever I go (usually 5 times per week), it will take a few weeks to get there. From there....who knows how far I'll go hahaha. I think I'm finally feeling a difference in my pants. My shoulder is much better, although still not 100%, but improvements overall. Still haven't made it outside to walk yet. The road is so mucky and plus after the nice weather, we did have some snow again. Nothing like Calgary and Edmonton this week though. They got slammed with a big snowstorm this week.
I guess what I"m looking forward to this time home is seeing the babies, getting some sleep, and catching up on world affairs. Counting down!
Monday, April 18, 2011
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Finally....a moose
Well ok, I didn't personally see the moose, but one of the guys did and got this picture. I haven't been outside since I got here, just looking at the beautiful spring weather through filthy dirty windows. If I wasn't so tired out from all the exercising...I would consider trying to pull the windows out and wash them! I'm sure that would be an exercise in futility though....given the dirt around here.
The weather has been lovely though, except all the dirt is blowing around again. It was very windy the other day and it looked like we were in the dust bowl.
Aimee heads home tonight, then on to Las Vegas to the wedding of Sara (the baker) and Mike (kitchen helper). I'm sure that event will be one for the books, and am looking forward to pictures and stories of that. I miss my babies back at home and will be anxious to snuggle up to the grandkids. Hmm, I still have 13 days yet to work. Speaking of work...the weekends are definitely a bit of a break. No constant barrage of reservations to fix up and room transfers and memos and reports and forecasts. Back to the pressure cooker tomorrow though. New staff arrived Friday, and I think will have completed their training at the end of the day today, will just have to get the Shell orientation for their badges. Can't work without a badge! It's one of those unbreakable rules. No badging available on weekends either.
I'm proud to say in the last week I've done FOUR of Ed's classes....3 core classes (using the exercise ball and also on the mats) and 1 boot camp. OK, I'm a wuss and I can't do everything, but I think I'm getting better. Still doing my laps in the morning. Now that it's nice I'd like to try the road around camp, which is something like 1.6 km I think. One of the Shell guys across the hall gave me safety stripes if I do decide to walk, because Safety First!
The weather has been lovely though, except all the dirt is blowing around again. It was very windy the other day and it looked like we were in the dust bowl.
Aimee heads home tonight, then on to Las Vegas to the wedding of Sara (the baker) and Mike (kitchen helper). I'm sure that event will be one for the books, and am looking forward to pictures and stories of that. I miss my babies back at home and will be anxious to snuggle up to the grandkids. Hmm, I still have 13 days yet to work. Speaking of work...the weekends are definitely a bit of a break. No constant barrage of reservations to fix up and room transfers and memos and reports and forecasts. Back to the pressure cooker tomorrow though. New staff arrived Friday, and I think will have completed their training at the end of the day today, will just have to get the Shell orientation for their badges. Can't work without a badge! It's one of those unbreakable rules. No badging available on weekends either.
I'm proud to say in the last week I've done FOUR of Ed's classes....3 core classes (using the exercise ball and also on the mats) and 1 boot camp. OK, I'm a wuss and I can't do everything, but I think I'm getting better. Still doing my laps in the morning. Now that it's nice I'd like to try the road around camp, which is something like 1.6 km I think. One of the Shell guys across the hall gave me safety stripes if I do decide to walk, because Safety First!
Thursday, April 7, 2011
The rude awakening...
Yep, that's what you call it at 5:30 am on your day to sleep until 6 am and the fire alarm goes off. Now, I am in a fire warden room, but haven't yet had my training. That's next week. After that, when the fire alarm goes off during the night, it means I have to don the vest, hard hat and flashlight, grab the clipboard and stand in the hall and yell "EMERGENCY!", then take attendance at the muster point. I don't think very many actually even left the building this morning, which would have really made me cranky, had there been a fire and had these people burned up in their beds.
It's only day 6 of 22 today. I already feel like burnt toast, this is not going to be good. Camp is burgeoning again and I've been putting in 12, 13 hour days :( And I've also been subjecting myself to Ed Cotter's exercise classes. Only 2 so far, but I'm thinking those evening classes will give me an excuse not to get up and walk/run at 5 am. The first class was a core class (meaning working the core muscles front and back, the deep muscles under the abs). I found it tough to get through, feeling like a wuss and whining alot, but I did my best. I figured I wouldn't be able to move the next day, so I was very pleasantly surprised when I hardly felt the effects the next morning. The day after THAT, however, was a whole different story. I couldn't wait for Ed to get in (he is sharing office space with me right now) so I could tell him how much I hated him. Then he had the gall to LAUGH at me about it. Then that happened to be the day that deliveries had to be made to every room in the village. What, no staff available to make the deliveries? Oh, I guess that meant Amanda, myself and Trish. Off we went with a luggage cart full of Shell sponsored guest survey packages, and also the pamphlets and envelopes from Election Canada (so everyone gets a chance to vote in the Federal election, even if they are away working in an isolated location). Each of us took a floor, and did dorms A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O. 44 rooms per floor. Open every door and put in the required materials. Took almost 4 hours of sweat-inducing labour. We decided at that point not to do C pod, which would have been P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, and Y. Someone else could get those done! I was apparently much slower than the other two, as we pretty much all finished at the same time, and on 3rd floor dorms L, M, and N were pretty much vacant. But I used my advanced age as an excuse, I mean I am old enough to be the other two girls' mom! I've been pulling the age card a lot lately, it seems :)
Camp is pretty much full again. Of course, we did not have advance warning about it, and because camp had been so empty last week, there were layoffs of camp attendants and kitchen workers. Plus for some reason again the front desk is short staffed. Argh!! We have two new people starting this weekend, but it will take a few days to get them trained and ready to go, so we have to endure this for about another week yet.
The weather has been great here. Much warmer than at home I see. This morning when I checked it was -7 in Stratford, and right on the freezing mark 0 degrees here. And here is the latest sunrise/sunset info:
Stratford sunrise 7:20
sunset 7:40
Ft. Mac sunrise 6:39
sunset 8:16
Yep, we're galloping on to those long days.
It's only day 6 of 22 today. I already feel like burnt toast, this is not going to be good. Camp is burgeoning again and I've been putting in 12, 13 hour days :( And I've also been subjecting myself to Ed Cotter's exercise classes. Only 2 so far, but I'm thinking those evening classes will give me an excuse not to get up and walk/run at 5 am. The first class was a core class (meaning working the core muscles front and back, the deep muscles under the abs). I found it tough to get through, feeling like a wuss and whining alot, but I did my best. I figured I wouldn't be able to move the next day, so I was very pleasantly surprised when I hardly felt the effects the next morning. The day after THAT, however, was a whole different story. I couldn't wait for Ed to get in (he is sharing office space with me right now) so I could tell him how much I hated him. Then he had the gall to LAUGH at me about it. Then that happened to be the day that deliveries had to be made to every room in the village. What, no staff available to make the deliveries? Oh, I guess that meant Amanda, myself and Trish. Off we went with a luggage cart full of Shell sponsored guest survey packages, and also the pamphlets and envelopes from Election Canada (so everyone gets a chance to vote in the Federal election, even if they are away working in an isolated location). Each of us took a floor, and did dorms A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O. 44 rooms per floor. Open every door and put in the required materials. Took almost 4 hours of sweat-inducing labour. We decided at that point not to do C pod, which would have been P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, and Y. Someone else could get those done! I was apparently much slower than the other two, as we pretty much all finished at the same time, and on 3rd floor dorms L, M, and N were pretty much vacant. But I used my advanced age as an excuse, I mean I am old enough to be the other two girls' mom! I've been pulling the age card a lot lately, it seems :)
Camp is pretty much full again. Of course, we did not have advance warning about it, and because camp had been so empty last week, there were layoffs of camp attendants and kitchen workers. Plus for some reason again the front desk is short staffed. Argh!! We have two new people starting this weekend, but it will take a few days to get them trained and ready to go, so we have to endure this for about another week yet.
The weather has been great here. Much warmer than at home I see. This morning when I checked it was -7 in Stratford, and right on the freezing mark 0 degrees here. And here is the latest sunrise/sunset info:
Stratford sunrise 7:20
sunset 7:40
Ft. Mac sunrise 6:39
sunset 8:16
Yep, we're galloping on to those long days.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Wow - it's April?
I can't believe how time is just whizzing past here! Spring is really trying to land, and actually much of the snow is melting away. That shows the dirt though....ew. The rotten snow banks in the ditches and whereever snow was piled up are black with dirt, you can barely see there is snow/ice underneath. Oh well, at least my window thawed out and can be opened now for some fresh air.
Well I had a blast on my days off. We drove to Fargo for some shopping. I guess that's the place to go because there were more Manitoba and Minnesota license plates than North Dakota ones in the parking lots. I tried out and bought my e-reader. I chose the Nook, mainly because I liked the bottom screen and of course the option to borrow books rather than buy them. I am able to get lots of free and very low-cost (.99) books on it though, from the Barnes & Nobles website. I bought so much stuff I had to borrow a duffle bag of Thor's to get everything back.
Busy busy here, just like I figured, the subcontractors are getting back to work. And short staffed again, I'm doing front desk and reservations for a couple of days. And I'm on Day 2 of 22 so we shall see how this run goes....
Well I had a blast on my days off. We drove to Fargo for some shopping. I guess that's the place to go because there were more Manitoba and Minnesota license plates than North Dakota ones in the parking lots. I tried out and bought my e-reader. I chose the Nook, mainly because I liked the bottom screen and of course the option to borrow books rather than buy them. I am able to get lots of free and very low-cost (.99) books on it though, from the Barnes & Nobles website. I bought so much stuff I had to borrow a duffle bag of Thor's to get everything back.
Busy busy here, just like I figured, the subcontractors are getting back to work. And short staffed again, I'm doing front desk and reservations for a couple of days. And I'm on Day 2 of 22 so we shall see how this run goes....
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