big wigs were here..

It appears that we had 13 big wigs in charge of mines around the world and in charge of the mining company coming in to camp on Wednesday. Normally we get one or two of the HR sort of guys and the camp gets a little bit unnerved by their arrival and all. However, this time we got so unnerved I think we got wedges from having our underwear in tight knots. Even if I had not been told that big wigs were coming to camp, I could sense the subtle things that told me that something was amiss.

First off, I had my usual 'thought for the day' posted on the main board. I like to put up little humourous quotes for the campers to read, though mainly I am the only one that finds them humourous while the others just shake their head at what I write. For instance, on Wednesday the thought was "is it good if a vacuum really sucks?". Anyways, Radio (you all remember Radio right? the guy who talks non-stop about nothing and everything in particular. The one that has a standing order to tap us on the shoulder when he is saying something of importance cause when he opens his mouth we just tune him out) comes up to me and taps the board and says "none of this tomorrow. We have important people coming and we cant give them the wrong impression". To which I wipe the thought off the board and say "what impression? that this might be a fun and interesting place to work?" That got me a sharp retort of "no, that we are a professional company working". That got my response of "great, so where are you going to tie up Henry so he is out of the way for the whole day?". I was told that "Henry is Henry and he blends in".

Don't know if I have mentioned Henry before but he is a mid-60's guy that has had 3 heart attacks already and takes about 7 pills with his supper and needs an hour nap in the middle of his shift or else he might have a stroke. Oh yeah, did I mention that he has the mind of a 20 year old perverted sailor that has lived in a brothel his entire life and he has no problems with speaking his mind out loud about it. I mean, I dont think of myself as prude but there are certain things about female body parts, as well as small and large animals, that just should not be said allowed followed by certain thrusting body motions.

That was my first sign that something was amiss. Later someone asked me where the thought for the day was and I had to polite tell them that "we have big wigs coming in to camp, we are not allowed thoughts".

Second sign that something wicked this way was coming was the amazing change in dress and buzz of activity that was present. Since we are in camp we really do not have a need for high professional dressings around here since it is sort of hard to portray a sort of professionalism when the people that you are trying to impress see you either walking down the hall with just a towel wrapped around you or in a teddy bear bath robe; or even see you sitting in the smoking room with a cigarette hanging out of your mouth as you swear at the hockey game on the TV. So when people go to the offices up here the standard attire is usually tshirts (one lady will wear tshirts that have cartoon or muppet characters on them while other guys wear shirts with sayings on them like "My wife says I dont listen to her...or some stupid s*&t like that"), jeans and sometimes even sweat pants. On Wednesday everyone was dressed in nice pants, button up shirts and some even had ties and name tags around their necks. I think a couple of the geotechs even showered, which for some of them is something that happens once ever week or so.

As well as being dressed up in office attire, a lot of the people in the place were dressed up in work attire and they were flying all over the camp doing stuff and carrying tools. The tool shed it out the back of the camp and the way they have it designed the handymen have to walk through the kitchen to get to the shed to grab their tools and materials and then walk through the kitchen to do the job. Normally we see them go through maybe 5 times a day and that is it. This day we had them going through non-stop carrying pieces of paper and tools instead of pastries and cups of coffee and were looking all professional and busy.

The third thing that had me thinking that something was up was that the kitchen got slammed with amazing food orders that are not normal. I was asked by Radio to make 4 assorted pastry trays to be in the board room during the presentation and discussions. He also added that he would ask Big D to do it but she would probably screw it up so he needed me to do it. As well, dinner was totally different and new. We normally have steak nights on Fridays but it was bumped up to Wednesday instead. So, steak is not something new so nothing out of the ordinary there. Normally we have it with either breaded shrimp or garlic butter shrimp but this night we were having king crab legs and sauteed escargot with mushrooms, not to mention the 3 trays of smoked salmon that we had put out. So as I am sitting down to my steak, crab legs, escargot, baked potatoe, smoked salmon with corn niblets, the day janitor asks Radio (sarcastically) if we are having this type of feast cause the big wigs were in camp. Radio actually said "what are you talking about? we have this every second week or so". This comment actually stopped our forks halfway to our mouths and a stunned silence for about 2 seconds before the entire table burst out laughing at such a stupid comment. Sure we may get steak once a week but crab, escargot and smoked salmon is like Santa...it only comes around once a year.

The big wigs came and we had our meeting. I was going to stick around for it but then after the introductions were done I realized that I was greasy and smelly and I had to shower and change before coming online to chat with the Mrs and watch Bones at 9. Little did I realize that the Mrs was out with friends eating really good century egg porridge and Bones was a repeat. Tweeted with the Mrs as she rushed home and did some internet surfing and watched the repeat.

The next day I found out what was said at the meeting. Basically it was the same thing in a nut shell that we are always told. There are big plans for the camp, lots of action in the upcoming year, gonna see some major moves forward and lots of development. Granted, that same thing was said last August and everyone got a 2 month lay off in October. So, not about to jump for joy at this news but will take the job one day at a time as the day progresses.