Common Sense

Quote for the day that I put on the main board yesterday was "ever notice how common sense is not that common?" Yeah, I did it on the fly but somehow a few things happened that made it quite appropriate for the day.



Looks like the weather up here is finally clearing up. Which is a good thing since 13 people were supposed to go out on Monday and it is now Thursday and they have faint hopes of getting out of camp. These 13 are easy to identify, however. They are the 13 people that were sitting at security with their luggage at 5:15am this morning (security doesn't open till 5:30am) with their luggage and the constant question "is the plane coming?"



'is the plane coming?' That has been the question asked by everyone for the last couple days. It has been asked so much that Radio has taken to walking in to a room and before anyone even asks he says "no, the ^%*$(*# plane is not ^%*$(*# coming" Of course, since he was supposed to go out yesterday (Wednesday), people have to prod him to get his goat. So after he says that, sits down, or does whatever he has to do, some wise guy has to ask "so, yeah, the plane, any idea if it is coming?" What can I say, people in camp are merciless, especially when it comes to riding someone about not being able to fly that day.



So 13 were due out on Monday and 22 were due out yesterday, which means we have a full plane of 35 people flying out today. The weather had better be good to fly people out or else if we are stuck here much longer we are going to need at least 2 planes to get everyone out. Another thing that I have noticed is that the more days people are stuck here, the less they work meaning the more we have for lunch. Of course, it seems our 1st cook doesn't take that in to consideration. Yesterday he seemed to think that 24 prime rib beef bones, an insert of mushroom rice and 20 lbs of taco meat (That is the normal amount we put out when we have 2 pastas and three pans of something else) would feed them all. Yeah, the bones were gone in the first 10 minutes of service and I got the joy of either answering 'no, sorry, we have no more ribs left' or watching the poor souls walk up and down the steam line with an empty plate looking around in the vain hopes that perhaps either they had missed the ribs (8 steam wells, one with taco meat, one with rice and one holding gravy and soup, all uncovered, with the other 5 with open empty pans...not like you have missed it there*G*) or standing there looking at me with their empty plate as if in their minds I can hear Oliver Twist muttering "please sir, can I have some more?" Common sense, really isn't that common with the cook.



We have a bunch of geotech health eaters in camp. These people seem not to eat meat (unless it is wings or something and then they make an exception). I had a little conversation with one of them at lunch. Basically this is how it went:



Health Nut (HN): Do you have any beans?

ME: beans? (rapidly going through my mind, kidney beans, lima beans, green beans, yellow beans??? wanna narrow it down a little for me since there are a lot of beans out there, toots?)

HN: *snotty annoyed attitude that a health nut that won't eat meat and looking at beef bones and taco meat can get* yeah, refried beans...black beans..something like that

ME: no, sorry, we don't order refried beans and we were shorted the black beans last week and are waiting for groceries to come in.

HN: can you order refried beans because you know it is really easy to make tacos with beans for us people that don't eat meat.

ME (in my mind): lady, you are in a camp full of guys that don't even look at the 2nd portion of the steam line cause that is where we keep the rice and vegetables. These guys probably don't know we have a salad bar and probably could not identify a vegetable if I threw it at them and you want us to waste a good portion of our meat budget to keep 1% of the camps population happy cause they don't like to eat meat? Suck it up, eat your greens and rice and leave me alone.

ME (Out loud and being diplomatic): I am sorry, you will have to talk to Ken about any special orders.

HN: Hmphhh..fine *walks away*

I mean, if there were complete and total vegans in the bunch and they were hard core eaters, then yeah I am sure the cook would make it a priority to have total vegetarian food for them. But when we see these 'vegetarians' eat chicken fingers and wings and the occassional beef dish, we are not going to be that forgiving.

oh well, just another happy camper out here in the frozen arctic.