Guess it is finally home time for me. Guess it was sort of uneventful out here in camp this time out. Not sure if these are situational funny moments, you know those moments where you had to be there for them to be amusing but when you are told them you scratch your head and go 'ummm, ok...guess you had to be there'.
One thing that gets on the cooks in camp nerves, and trust me there are a lot of things that get on our nerves, are people that 1) don't use the tongs that are provided to the dish that is set but use anything that they can grab and 2) those that can't wait to stand in front of the item but instead reach across someone and grab something to put on their plate. One case happened for the first point where I think it was Saturday night junk food night. We had burgers and fish and chips on the line. The way it was set up was that the first steam well pan had toasted burger buns, next were the burger patties, then the battered fish and finally the home cut fries (just like NY Fries potato fries). So this one guy comes in and looks at the four items, which all have a set of tongs set in front of them in plain view and sight, and he picks up the tongs for the burger buns and grabs a bun...then moves down with the same tongs and grabs a hamburger...then with the same tongs grabs a couple pieces of fish and then, yes again with the same tongs, grabs a load of fries and looks down the line and feeling that he has enough puts the tongs in with the fries (now there are two sets in the fries and none in the burger buns) and starts to walk away. I look at the 1st cook totally stunned and he moves forward in time so that the guy was in ear shot and said, not shouted, so that the guy couldn't miss it "don't worry, I will get those tongs and put them back". The best part that got me laughing, and this might be the 'you had to be there' part, was when the 1st cook looked at me when he was walking back from the line and in a very good Goofy voice impersonation said "I am in charge of flight details, yuk yuk". This was the Saturday after the Friday grocery plane was diverted and then Saturday when no groceries were flying in and the whole plane booking was a fiasco.
Allergies and food preferences were on the rise this time in camp. We had a lactose intolerant guy, guy allergic to soy and a few vegetarians that wrinkled their noses at all the meat dishes that we served (though one of them actually tried 1/4 of a steak). I learned that soy has got to be one of the worst things to be allergic to on the planet. Not because of the lethality (if that is a word...is it? well, if it isn't it should be) of the allergy but because soy has to be in nearly every single thing that we have out here to cook with. Nothing deep fried since the oil has some soy in it (we fry in vegetable oil and supposedly that is iffy cause there is a 90% chance that the oil has soy in it); since margarine is cheaper than butter the bosses prefer that we use margarine in place of it when possible. So our vegetables have a bit of margarine on them for taste, bit of it in the rice for shine, some in the noodles for shine as well as taste. So no noodles, rice or vegetables for the guy. All the salads when I had a Ceasar out were dressed/creamed so no salads. I mean, some days the only thing that we had on the line for him to eat was the bread and pickle tray. Though once we became aware of the allergy we started getting a little more helpful to him. I started having a tossed salad out every night, even if it was just a 1/2 a container so that 5 salads were out instead of just 4, the vegetables started being sauteed in olive oil or steamed and just put out with some seasoning but no oil/butter/margarine and before each meal I was briefed by the 1st cook on what he could or couldn't eat so that when he came through we could warn him about potential dangerous items. When he left camp he thanked us for our consideration to his allergy needs and hopes that he returns to camp for the great food.
Our groceries did arrive on time on Friday this week so we were happy. However, since we can never be 100% satisfied with anything, we were ticked cause it came on steak night as well as right in time for lunch. By 'in time for lunch' I mean 10 skids of groceries came to the back loading dock as soon as we opened the doors to feed 70 people for lunch and there was only 3 of us in the kitchen, plus the camp manager helping out. Though it evened out since we lost our dishwasher from time to time so that he could keep up with giving out silverware and clean plates/bowls. Now our fridge and freezer are packed to the brim. So packed that we have stuff piled on the floor waiting for room on the shelves to be put away. No worries now about running short on something.
Not that it matters to me, cause in 7 hours I am going to security to board a plane to fly to Yellowknife. In 12 hours I will be in Yellowknife doing odd jobs and chores at my parents place and then in 23 hours I will be on a plane to Edmonton and then in 26 hours from this moment (8:10am) I will be walking in the door to the condo to hug the Mrs...
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
baba ganoush
Made my first batch of baba ganoush from scratch last night. We got eggplants with the groceries and I thought I would try to get rid of them. Not really sure what to do with them but the 1st cook says that the guy that is coming in to replace him has a wide arsenal of vegetarian dish ideas and he makes a mean eggplant Parmesan. Anyways, I grilled up a couple and then baked them and followed a recipe on line to make baba ganoush. It was funny because half way through pureeing it all and getting the ingredients in I had a brain flash. I have no idea what baba ganoush is supposed to taste like I can't taste test it to see what needs to be added.
I didn't let a little thing like that stop me though. I mixed it all up and then pretty much asked anyone walking by my counter if they had every tried it and if they did they got to taste my mixture and let me know what I needed. Apparently the dishwasher had tried it in the past and all I needed to add to my first batch was just more salt to give it that 'zing' that it usually has. The 1st cook took a taste and found it yummy. So I put it out for dinner service along with curry chips (basically curry wraps that I cut, tossed in oil and baked in the oven till crispy) to see if anyone would take it. Apparently it was a hit....well, by 'hit' I mean I made a small serving bowl of it and it went. Not hit as in I made 3 bus tubs of the it and it all went. But for a puree of eggplant, tahini paste (had to make that by scratch as well...sesame seeds are really tricky to toast. They go from white to burnt black in a split second), garlic, lemon juice and salt that looks like either something that you put into a baby or comes out of a baby, I consider it a hit. Those that I asked if it tasted ok said it was yummy, especially with the curry chips and the dishwasher took the left over baba ganoush from the bowl to his room with a handful of chips. So guess it wasn't that bad. Personally I found it tasted alright to start but left a real icky after taste in the back of my throat.
So yeah, who knows, I might make a pretty good herbivore cook if I put my mind to it....
I didn't let a little thing like that stop me though. I mixed it all up and then pretty much asked anyone walking by my counter if they had every tried it and if they did they got to taste my mixture and let me know what I needed. Apparently the dishwasher had tried it in the past and all I needed to add to my first batch was just more salt to give it that 'zing' that it usually has. The 1st cook took a taste and found it yummy. So I put it out for dinner service along with curry chips (basically curry wraps that I cut, tossed in oil and baked in the oven till crispy) to see if anyone would take it. Apparently it was a hit....well, by 'hit' I mean I made a small serving bowl of it and it went. Not hit as in I made 3 bus tubs of the it and it all went. But for a puree of eggplant, tahini paste (had to make that by scratch as well...sesame seeds are really tricky to toast. They go from white to burnt black in a split second), garlic, lemon juice and salt that looks like either something that you put into a baby or comes out of a baby, I consider it a hit. Those that I asked if it tasted ok said it was yummy, especially with the curry chips and the dishwasher took the left over baba ganoush from the bowl to his room with a handful of chips. So guess it wasn't that bad. Personally I found it tasted alright to start but left a real icky after taste in the back of my throat.
So yeah, who knows, I might make a pretty good herbivore cook if I put my mind to it....
Monday, March 22, 2010
comedy of errors
Talk in the kitchen is that the whole jet idea of flying directly from Edmonton to camp might be scrapped. Well, that is what the common sense people are talking about in the kitchen. As for what the big wig geniuses in the decision making think tank are thinking we can only speculate at what ideas are gonna pop out of their head. Here is the story of groceries...
We were supposed to get our groceries on the Friday. One flight per week because that is what they are doing now. Instead of a minimum of 3 flights a week (M/W/F) with a possibility to fly in little hops of things as required, the powers that be decided to bump it to the one jet from Edmonton on Fridays and that is all. So, this Friday was the 2nd time that a jet was flown up from Edmonton to camp. It had on it people, bags and supplies (groceries and other items for the workshops around camp). It takes off a little later than usual (apparently the captains chair had an issue and needed repairs) and heads up to camp. The pilot over shoots the runway and has to re-throttle the plane to get back in the air making him too low on fuel to make another pass and they have to fly all the way up to Cambridge Bay to refuel before heading back to camp to try again at landing. This adds another 3 hours to their expected landing time. Originally the plane was supposed to land just after our lunch rush so now we are expecting our 6 skids (nearly 10,000lbs) of groceries sometime around supper time. Supper on Fridays is steak night. So we were looking at 3 people (1st and 2nd cook with dishwasher) plus the camp manager putting the groceries away all the while keeping a line stocked with food and cooking steaks to order plus doing dishes for 150 person camp. Oh yeah, easy and no stress there.
Well, turns out that the plane does return back at around 4pm so we are all set and ready to unload our groceries as quickly as possible so that we can get dinner underway as smooth as we can. We are all ready for action when we get the call on the radio that there are no groceries on the plane. They apparently had to do some reshuffling in the cargo area and decided that either the groceries were considered a non-essential item to come into camp or that it was the groceries that were causing the weight problem that caused the jet to overshoot the small runway that we have out here. So, Friday, no groceries and our cooler is looking kind of bare. I am basically looking for salad recipes that call for celery, carrots, cabbage, zucchini and green peppers as the only ingredients.
Saturday we were hoping to get groceries but the weather decided not to co-operate. We had clear blue skies all around us with not a hint of fog or cloud cover. Mainly because the high wind gusts were blowing anything not nailed down away. All day we could hear the wind howling at our back door. No way a plane could land in that so the plane was cancelled. Keep in mind, our fridge is looking incredibly bare at the moment and we have maybe 4 loaves of white and brown bread totally. We have enough rye, raisin and Texas toast (3/4 inch cut white bread) to last us for weeks but not a stitch of sandwich bread around. Kind of hard for the night guy who is making 180 sandwiches a night to make sandwiches for a day with that much bread. Our baker is preparing to bake home made bread for sandwiches the next night if the groceries don't come in. Also caused some problems because we had 4 tomatoes left in the cooler and we had hamburgers on the menu. We were given orders not to put out tomatoes but still had people coming up to us on the line going "how come we don't have any tomatoes for the burgers? I like tomatoes on my burger". Yeah buddy, we all like tomatoes on our burger but when the plane is two days late, you don't get tomatoes..move along.
Sunday we have prime rib on the menu so the 1st cook goes to make Yorkshire puddings and discovers that we are down to 1/2 a case of eggs. We usually go through a case, maybe more, at breakfast time. So we have to make the call, use 1/2 of what we have for Yorkshire puddings or save the rest for breakfast as long as it can hold up. In the end, Yorkshire puddings won.
Think the strategy being that pretty much everyone in the camp that is dependant on things coming in on the plane for survival (mechanics, catering, repairmen) hate this new system cause we get one chance to get everything we can and that is iffy but on the old system the little planes could fly things in anytime that they wanted. Smaller planes can land easier than the big behemoth that they are flying now. The other people like the new one flight a week idea cause that means they get out of here quicker and to their homes faster. No over-nighting in places where they might have before. So, the ones that are dependant on the flights were making it as uncomfortable as possible for those in camp hoping that the complaints might get loud enough so that even the people in the states making the decisions for the camp will have a clue that something is wrong in their decision making process.
So on Sunday we are hoping for groceries cause we are pretty much down to the bare minimum. Our cooler is looking like a bachelor in college fridge, minus the beer and left over pizza boxes. Luckily though, we get groceries on that day. The plane lands and all the groceries are off loaded and put away. The cooks are stressed beyond belief....but we have food. You have no idea how easy it is to make a tossed salad when you have a wide variety of vegetables to put in it instead of just lettuce, green pepper and celery...
That is the story of the groceries. Talk about your nail biting and excitement packed weekend.
We were supposed to get our groceries on the Friday. One flight per week because that is what they are doing now. Instead of a minimum of 3 flights a week (M/W/F) with a possibility to fly in little hops of things as required, the powers that be decided to bump it to the one jet from Edmonton on Fridays and that is all. So, this Friday was the 2nd time that a jet was flown up from Edmonton to camp. It had on it people, bags and supplies (groceries and other items for the workshops around camp). It takes off a little later than usual (apparently the captains chair had an issue and needed repairs) and heads up to camp. The pilot over shoots the runway and has to re-throttle the plane to get back in the air making him too low on fuel to make another pass and they have to fly all the way up to Cambridge Bay to refuel before heading back to camp to try again at landing. This adds another 3 hours to their expected landing time. Originally the plane was supposed to land just after our lunch rush so now we are expecting our 6 skids (nearly 10,000lbs) of groceries sometime around supper time. Supper on Fridays is steak night. So we were looking at 3 people (1st and 2nd cook with dishwasher) plus the camp manager putting the groceries away all the while keeping a line stocked with food and cooking steaks to order plus doing dishes for 150 person camp. Oh yeah, easy and no stress there.
Well, turns out that the plane does return back at around 4pm so we are all set and ready to unload our groceries as quickly as possible so that we can get dinner underway as smooth as we can. We are all ready for action when we get the call on the radio that there are no groceries on the plane. They apparently had to do some reshuffling in the cargo area and decided that either the groceries were considered a non-essential item to come into camp or that it was the groceries that were causing the weight problem that caused the jet to overshoot the small runway that we have out here. So, Friday, no groceries and our cooler is looking kind of bare. I am basically looking for salad recipes that call for celery, carrots, cabbage, zucchini and green peppers as the only ingredients.
Saturday we were hoping to get groceries but the weather decided not to co-operate. We had clear blue skies all around us with not a hint of fog or cloud cover. Mainly because the high wind gusts were blowing anything not nailed down away. All day we could hear the wind howling at our back door. No way a plane could land in that so the plane was cancelled. Keep in mind, our fridge is looking incredibly bare at the moment and we have maybe 4 loaves of white and brown bread totally. We have enough rye, raisin and Texas toast (3/4 inch cut white bread) to last us for weeks but not a stitch of sandwich bread around. Kind of hard for the night guy who is making 180 sandwiches a night to make sandwiches for a day with that much bread. Our baker is preparing to bake home made bread for sandwiches the next night if the groceries don't come in. Also caused some problems because we had 4 tomatoes left in the cooler and we had hamburgers on the menu. We were given orders not to put out tomatoes but still had people coming up to us on the line going "how come we don't have any tomatoes for the burgers? I like tomatoes on my burger". Yeah buddy, we all like tomatoes on our burger but when the plane is two days late, you don't get tomatoes..move along.
Sunday we have prime rib on the menu so the 1st cook goes to make Yorkshire puddings and discovers that we are down to 1/2 a case of eggs. We usually go through a case, maybe more, at breakfast time. So we have to make the call, use 1/2 of what we have for Yorkshire puddings or save the rest for breakfast as long as it can hold up. In the end, Yorkshire puddings won.
Think the strategy being that pretty much everyone in the camp that is dependant on things coming in on the plane for survival (mechanics, catering, repairmen) hate this new system cause we get one chance to get everything we can and that is iffy but on the old system the little planes could fly things in anytime that they wanted. Smaller planes can land easier than the big behemoth that they are flying now. The other people like the new one flight a week idea cause that means they get out of here quicker and to their homes faster. No over-nighting in places where they might have before. So, the ones that are dependant on the flights were making it as uncomfortable as possible for those in camp hoping that the complaints might get loud enough so that even the people in the states making the decisions for the camp will have a clue that something is wrong in their decision making process.
So on Sunday we are hoping for groceries cause we are pretty much down to the bare minimum. Our cooler is looking like a bachelor in college fridge, minus the beer and left over pizza boxes. Luckily though, we get groceries on that day. The plane lands and all the groceries are off loaded and put away. The cooks are stressed beyond belief....but we have food. You have no idea how easy it is to make a tossed salad when you have a wide variety of vegetables to put in it instead of just lettuce, green pepper and celery...
That is the story of the groceries. Talk about your nail biting and excitement packed weekend.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
fates are getting vicious
I can't believe how desperate the fates are to conspire against me. Everytime that I have been slated for nights or baker training something pops up that stops it from happening for me. For example, the last time I was promised nights it turned out that we were getting an extra 10 people in camp and they brought in a different cook for the breakfast position and I had to stay 2nd because he wasn't 'strong enough' as a 2nd cook to handle the rush and work load. Ok, fine, little miffed but at least no one got hurt. That sort of thing happened quite a bit.
However here is what has just happened. The head supervisor comes in to the kitchen, goes to the back with the 1st cook and then calls out to me in the front to come to the back because I 'might as well hear this'. I am instantly put on warning mode cause I am never called in on a back kitchen meeting with the 1st cook and head supervisor so am thinking bad things are amiss (IE complaints about the food, illnesses from the food). Turns out that the 1st cook that was out on his time out that was going to replace the existing 1st cook allowing me to go to night shift had sprained his ankle on the stairs in his house. It is so bad that he requires surgery to put pins in his ankle and all. So he is out of the work loop for at least 4 months to heal and all.
What does this mean to me? well, this means that the breakfast cook has to stay in an extra week as breakfast cook, I stay as 2nd cook cause there is no one coming in to replace the existing 1st cook and the 1st cook has to stay for an extra week because they have two new cooks coming in on the day he was supposed to go out but they have to be shown the ropes and all of camp life and cooking. So in the end, my night shift/baker training is put on hold and I stay 2nd cook for another week leaving me with 4 glorious weeks of 2nd cooking.
Even better though is when I found out what my night shift was going to be. Back when I was being informed of my switch over to nights I asked what my duties were and was told breakfast cook. So I thought I would clarify and asked 'am I just breakfast cook or am I breakfast cook with the intention to watch and learn from the baker to take that position?' and I was told in a hesitant voice 'yeah, sure, watch if you have the time....' Which I took to meaning "nope, not gonna make you baker but if you want to learn go right ahead". Guess their baker positions are already filled with Big D (Their long term quota hire) and Sheldon (the amazing baker).
However here is what has just happened. The head supervisor comes in to the kitchen, goes to the back with the 1st cook and then calls out to me in the front to come to the back because I 'might as well hear this'. I am instantly put on warning mode cause I am never called in on a back kitchen meeting with the 1st cook and head supervisor so am thinking bad things are amiss (IE complaints about the food, illnesses from the food). Turns out that the 1st cook that was out on his time out that was going to replace the existing 1st cook allowing me to go to night shift had sprained his ankle on the stairs in his house. It is so bad that he requires surgery to put pins in his ankle and all. So he is out of the work loop for at least 4 months to heal and all.
What does this mean to me? well, this means that the breakfast cook has to stay in an extra week as breakfast cook, I stay as 2nd cook cause there is no one coming in to replace the existing 1st cook and the 1st cook has to stay for an extra week because they have two new cooks coming in on the day he was supposed to go out but they have to be shown the ropes and all of camp life and cooking. So in the end, my night shift/baker training is put on hold and I stay 2nd cook for another week leaving me with 4 glorious weeks of 2nd cooking.
Even better though is when I found out what my night shift was going to be. Back when I was being informed of my switch over to nights I asked what my duties were and was told breakfast cook. So I thought I would clarify and asked 'am I just breakfast cook or am I breakfast cook with the intention to watch and learn from the baker to take that position?' and I was told in a hesitant voice 'yeah, sure, watch if you have the time....' Which I took to meaning "nope, not gonna make you baker but if you want to learn go right ahead". Guess their baker positions are already filled with Big D (Their long term quota hire) and Sheldon (the amazing baker).
Friday, March 12, 2010
dietary preferences
I know that there is a high chance that I am going to come off sounding like an insensitive person and I know that there is the saying "walk a mile in someone's shoes" and all, but I think that when there comes to some things there has to be a line. Food allergies and preferences...there has to be a limit.
I have only one preference and rule for me. I can not handle anything too spicy. Not because I don't like the taste of things that are spicy, though the thought of eating something so spicy hot that your tongue burns for an hour afterwards and you really don't taste the food item in question but only taste the spicy sauce kind of boggles my mind. I don't eat spicy food because it usually has a bad effect on my stomach and gives heart burn. Yep, first stage of getting old...figure my next stage is to hike my pants up over my stomach and complain about the government while sitting on park benches. However, I don't ask people to cook with less spice. If they do, I am thrilled; if they don't, I eat whatever else is left on the table. If I am ordering something in a restaurant and it is made to order, I will ask for less spice or even order something that is not spicy at all; I won't ask a buffet situation to make me a new plate of something that has little spice.
So that being said, we have a head supervisor big wig in camp that is lactose intolerant. I think he is minorly lactose intolerant cause he can eat things that are cooked or covered in butter but he can't drink milk or eat cheese. Not sure if that counts as lactose cause I always figured that if you are lactose intolerant that means you really can't eat anything that comes from milk. So all dairy (butter, cheese, milk, yoghurt) are out of your diet. What do we do to accomodate his needs out in camp? When I make a sandwich, or anything is made on the line, we have to make a serving or two without any dairy in it. Mashed potatoes are done without milk in them, only butter or margarine; I leave out cheese on the finished product of the sandwich that I make (which makes for an interesting grilled cheese and ham sandwich that is for sure) and so forth. However, what gets me is that I usually make him a sandwich, put it aside and keep it warm and soft away from the others and when I offer it to him he often goes "no, thanks, that is alright". If you are having something done for you specifically to meet your dietary needs, I figure even if you are not going to eat it all you take it, say thank you very much and walk away. Even if you throw it in the garbage after taking two bites of it, take the darn item. We have even gone so far as to order in lactose free milk for him. It took us nearly 2 months to get it in since our supplier out of Yellowknife really didn't carry lactose free milk that much but we finally got in 12 cartons of the stuff. We had it put in the kitchen cooler because we knew if it went out to the main fridge that the other geo-techs and herbivores would drink it all and this guy would get maybe a glass or two and that would be it. We were given instructions that if he came in to the kitchen to get a glass he was allowed (no one but workers are allowed in the back) or if he asked we had to go to the fridge and bring him a carton to use. So what happens? the day the stuff arrives, he comes to the back and happily grabs a glass and then the next day tells the camp manager that he doesn't like 'the brand' of milk that we got and wonders if we could get a different brand. Yeah, the camp manager told him that he would 'see what could be done' while we were told the camp managers true feelings. I dont think I have to write it down but it does involve a carton of milk, a place where the sun really does not shine and a lot of pushing and shoving. Did I mention that he is a high big wig in camp (when they drew up the chain of command of the camp and had it posted on the main board so everyone knows who to suck up to, his name was 2nd from the top)? Doubt he would get this kind of treatment if he was a driller or janitor.
Friday night was steak night. We often get slammed really bad on steak night because the 1st cook we have now does not believe in cooking the steaks to a certain degree and keeping them warm on the side so that it takes maybe 30 seconds to a minute and then hands out the steak. He cooks them to a degree and then lets them go cold so that when they are ordered on the line they take about 2-3 minutes on the grill to heat up. Which mean when we have a line up of 20 guys coming to get their steaks and only 3 steaks being ordered at a time, you can imagine how much running back and forth we get to do of delivering steaks, stocking up the line and putting other items down to cook. In the middle of all this running around, one guy looks at the food and asks "are all these items cooked in soy oil?" Ummmm, soy oil? never heard of the stuff though am thinking it is one of those items that has come out to eliminate the evils of the trans fats or whatever the fat it is these days that we aren't supposed to eat cause the nutritionists have said so. Of course I go and quickly have a look at the deep fry oil that we are using and it says 'vegetable oil' so I say that they were cooked in vegetable oil. Which he gives me a snooty look and says 'well, vegetable oil has a high chance of being made with soy oil'. Of course what I wanted to say was 'gee, thanks for the nutrition lesson, who the heck cares. Take your salad and potatoe and go commune with nature and let us meat eaters enjoy a nice meal' but instead all I could say was 'steak?' and he just shrugged and walked away. I think that it should be told to all people being hired to come to camp, if you are a health minded person that wants to eat low fat, low carbs, low taste, high nutrition stuff then stay out of camp. We make the artery clogging, taste packed, greasy and glorious food that has caused heart attacks and high cholesterol for many many generations and we love it. We don't get much in the way of your tofu burgers, soy weiners and organic carrots and corn out this way in the north. If we get anything to cook, we don't ask what it is or where it came from, we just thank the management for giving us something to cook and serve.
So yeah, that is my rant for the day. People asking for special treatment for food tastes. If you are allergic to the food and will die if you eat it, then yes we will tell you that there are peanuts in the salad or shrimp in the shrimp jambalya...but if you just have a taste preference live by the golden rule 'when in doubt, spit it out and eat a freaking salad'.
I have only one preference and rule for me. I can not handle anything too spicy. Not because I don't like the taste of things that are spicy, though the thought of eating something so spicy hot that your tongue burns for an hour afterwards and you really don't taste the food item in question but only taste the spicy sauce kind of boggles my mind. I don't eat spicy food because it usually has a bad effect on my stomach and gives heart burn. Yep, first stage of getting old...figure my next stage is to hike my pants up over my stomach and complain about the government while sitting on park benches. However, I don't ask people to cook with less spice. If they do, I am thrilled; if they don't, I eat whatever else is left on the table. If I am ordering something in a restaurant and it is made to order, I will ask for less spice or even order something that is not spicy at all; I won't ask a buffet situation to make me a new plate of something that has little spice.
So that being said, we have a head supervisor big wig in camp that is lactose intolerant. I think he is minorly lactose intolerant cause he can eat things that are cooked or covered in butter but he can't drink milk or eat cheese. Not sure if that counts as lactose cause I always figured that if you are lactose intolerant that means you really can't eat anything that comes from milk. So all dairy (butter, cheese, milk, yoghurt) are out of your diet. What do we do to accomodate his needs out in camp? When I make a sandwich, or anything is made on the line, we have to make a serving or two without any dairy in it. Mashed potatoes are done without milk in them, only butter or margarine; I leave out cheese on the finished product of the sandwich that I make (which makes for an interesting grilled cheese and ham sandwich that is for sure) and so forth. However, what gets me is that I usually make him a sandwich, put it aside and keep it warm and soft away from the others and when I offer it to him he often goes "no, thanks, that is alright". If you are having something done for you specifically to meet your dietary needs, I figure even if you are not going to eat it all you take it, say thank you very much and walk away. Even if you throw it in the garbage after taking two bites of it, take the darn item. We have even gone so far as to order in lactose free milk for him. It took us nearly 2 months to get it in since our supplier out of Yellowknife really didn't carry lactose free milk that much but we finally got in 12 cartons of the stuff. We had it put in the kitchen cooler because we knew if it went out to the main fridge that the other geo-techs and herbivores would drink it all and this guy would get maybe a glass or two and that would be it. We were given instructions that if he came in to the kitchen to get a glass he was allowed (no one but workers are allowed in the back) or if he asked we had to go to the fridge and bring him a carton to use. So what happens? the day the stuff arrives, he comes to the back and happily grabs a glass and then the next day tells the camp manager that he doesn't like 'the brand' of milk that we got and wonders if we could get a different brand. Yeah, the camp manager told him that he would 'see what could be done' while we were told the camp managers true feelings. I dont think I have to write it down but it does involve a carton of milk, a place where the sun really does not shine and a lot of pushing and shoving. Did I mention that he is a high big wig in camp (when they drew up the chain of command of the camp and had it posted on the main board so everyone knows who to suck up to, his name was 2nd from the top)? Doubt he would get this kind of treatment if he was a driller or janitor.
Friday night was steak night. We often get slammed really bad on steak night because the 1st cook we have now does not believe in cooking the steaks to a certain degree and keeping them warm on the side so that it takes maybe 30 seconds to a minute and then hands out the steak. He cooks them to a degree and then lets them go cold so that when they are ordered on the line they take about 2-3 minutes on the grill to heat up. Which mean when we have a line up of 20 guys coming to get their steaks and only 3 steaks being ordered at a time, you can imagine how much running back and forth we get to do of delivering steaks, stocking up the line and putting other items down to cook. In the middle of all this running around, one guy looks at the food and asks "are all these items cooked in soy oil?" Ummmm, soy oil? never heard of the stuff though am thinking it is one of those items that has come out to eliminate the evils of the trans fats or whatever the fat it is these days that we aren't supposed to eat cause the nutritionists have said so. Of course I go and quickly have a look at the deep fry oil that we are using and it says 'vegetable oil' so I say that they were cooked in vegetable oil. Which he gives me a snooty look and says 'well, vegetable oil has a high chance of being made with soy oil'. Of course what I wanted to say was 'gee, thanks for the nutrition lesson, who the heck cares. Take your salad and potatoe and go commune with nature and let us meat eaters enjoy a nice meal' but instead all I could say was 'steak?' and he just shrugged and walked away. I think that it should be told to all people being hired to come to camp, if you are a health minded person that wants to eat low fat, low carbs, low taste, high nutrition stuff then stay out of camp. We make the artery clogging, taste packed, greasy and glorious food that has caused heart attacks and high cholesterol for many many generations and we love it. We don't get much in the way of your tofu burgers, soy weiners and organic carrots and corn out this way in the north. If we get anything to cook, we don't ask what it is or where it came from, we just thank the management for giving us something to cook and serve.
So yeah, that is my rant for the day. People asking for special treatment for food tastes. If you are allergic to the food and will die if you eat it, then yes we will tell you that there are peanuts in the salad or shrimp in the shrimp jambalya...but if you just have a taste preference live by the golden rule 'when in doubt, spit it out and eat a freaking salad'.
dishwashing and fecal fingerpainting
Life in camp is progressing as per normal. One thing I do find is that the longer I am in camp the easier it takes for me to get annoyed at certain things. For instance, one thing that I can not seem to fathom is the attitude of the dishwasher. Before we had a 61 year old man that was really set in his ways and when something displeased him he was not shy about voicing it in a loud and arrogant manner, usually accompanied by many swear words and all. One thing that he did not like was that when we brought him dirty pans/pots/utensils that were not rinsed clean or scraped of every single speck of food. I once brought him a grey tub that I used to mix my salads in and it had about 4 beans stuck to the side that didn't come out with the first 6 hits in the garbage can and he held them up to me and shouted across the kitchen "You want these beans washed and brought back to you to reuse?" though I have omitted the swearing and insult part but that was the gist. I usually get him back and make him a little angrier by replying "oh yes please, make sure you scrub them clean and rinse them completely cause we are running low". That usually gets me another bout of swears and insults for a bit. When he is dishwasher the routine is to take the dirty item to the back sink, scrap away all garbage from the item, wash it down and get rid of all liquid material and then bring him the pan for washing. I joke with the other cooks when they bring out pans to 'make sure you wash the dish before bringing it to the dish washer'.
I just thought it was him, however the new dishwasher that we have is the same. Granted, what the other one did in seriousness this one does in jest and will come up to us about every 2 to 3 days and say "you know I am only joking about it right" but then go back to the sink and curse under his breath about the amount of times he has to change his dish water cause we are bringing him dirty dishes. I think the one thing that he has to realize when it comes to jokes it to know when enough is enough, or as Norm in Cheers said to Cliff "the secret is to know when to stop". After two weeks of hearing about 'more F&^*en pots' or 'more F&^*en dishes' I don't even listen anymore but just walk away. He is also constantly amazed at how people keep coming in to the kitchen and eat and leave a dish or cup on the dish rack all day long. Like he expects people to eat only during the 3 meal times that we have open and then stay out of the kitchen and dont drink coffee/tea or any other liquid for the entire day. The only saving grace is that I know I am not like that in the dishpit so I like to think that the cooks rejoice when I ever get shifted there for a week or two because they dont have to listen to whining and complaining all day long about the amount of dishes that need to be done.
On a different note from the dishpit, it seems that someone in the new D-wing camp decided to do some fingerpainting on the wall to show his artistic talent. Granted we are not against the arts and showing your creativity and will accept pretty much any form of medium from oil and water colours to clay or plaster. It does seem, however, that we draw the line on using the persons own feces. Yep, that is right, apparently someone in the D-wing area decided to have a bowel movement and smeared it on the walls using his fingers. I didn't see it directly but was told in our morning safety meeting that it happened and was brought up in the other meetings that if it happens again then our manager is going to look to fire every single person sleeping in D-Wing (though that is just him being angry, we know that all that will happen is that they will attempt to find out who did it and if found that single person, and all that participated, will be fired). It wasn't even a picture or artistic value (as in not a picture or words or anything) just basic scribbles and squiqqles like someone got it on their fingers and then whipped it off on the wall then got it on their fingers again and whipped it on the wall again and again.
Granted this is not the first time I have heard of this happening in camp so it doesn't really phase me much. Supposedly at the trucker camp that I worked at one year for about a month we would get at least 2-3 times a week a time where someone decided that their schedule was too tight to shower and use the toilet and would therefore then decide to shower and crap in the shower before leaving. Now it happened with enough time spacing it apart that we figured it was the same person going up the road and then coming back again so I know it wasn't all truckers, just one really disgusting person.
About the incident here, the finger painting was a new idea but the thing that got me sort of shaking my head and wondering is that the janitor had no clue that it happened. The one girl that we have cleaning D-Wing is the same one that was removed from this camp because she kept sleeping in for her shift. She was to start at 7 and she slept til 8, so they moved her shift to 8 and she slept til 9. Finally they put her out on 'suspension' but was moved to another camp as a janitor 1 month later. In that camp she did the same thing. They moved her shift an hour up starting from 8 but when it hit her starting at noon and she was still an hour late starting they removed her from camp and said she was not welcome back. Guess that was her suspension cause she came back to this camp a couple weeks later. The entire D-wing consists of about 25 rooms, two bathrooms, one laundry room and a coffee/tv area to sit. She has 12 hours to clean the main areas and make the beds in those rooms with half being on night shift and half being on day shift. Considering the size of the main camp and what the other two housekeepers do and clean the D-wing is no great feat. When it was, however, brought up in the meeting about the fingerpainting in the D-wing, she actually looked at the manager with shock and amazement and said "wow, really? someone did that?" Now she is not the type to do work that is moderately hard/disgusting and keep it to herself. She likes the world to know that she had to clean up someone's spit from the hallway so this would have been at least another 10 minutes to the meeting of her venting about the work she had to do but yet, nothing when it was mentioned in the meeting. Now it makes me wonder, what the heck does she do over there for 12 whole hours that someone can take a crap and smear it on the walls and she does not notice it?
So, yeah, life in camp is progressing as normal. Oh, they are still talking of putting me on night shift next Friday as a baker in training. Should be interesting.
I just thought it was him, however the new dishwasher that we have is the same. Granted, what the other one did in seriousness this one does in jest and will come up to us about every 2 to 3 days and say "you know I am only joking about it right" but then go back to the sink and curse under his breath about the amount of times he has to change his dish water cause we are bringing him dirty dishes. I think the one thing that he has to realize when it comes to jokes it to know when enough is enough, or as Norm in Cheers said to Cliff "the secret is to know when to stop". After two weeks of hearing about 'more F&^*en pots' or 'more F&^*en dishes' I don't even listen anymore but just walk away. He is also constantly amazed at how people keep coming in to the kitchen and eat and leave a dish or cup on the dish rack all day long. Like he expects people to eat only during the 3 meal times that we have open and then stay out of the kitchen and dont drink coffee/tea or any other liquid for the entire day. The only saving grace is that I know I am not like that in the dishpit so I like to think that the cooks rejoice when I ever get shifted there for a week or two because they dont have to listen to whining and complaining all day long about the amount of dishes that need to be done.
On a different note from the dishpit, it seems that someone in the new D-wing camp decided to do some fingerpainting on the wall to show his artistic talent. Granted we are not against the arts and showing your creativity and will accept pretty much any form of medium from oil and water colours to clay or plaster. It does seem, however, that we draw the line on using the persons own feces. Yep, that is right, apparently someone in the D-wing area decided to have a bowel movement and smeared it on the walls using his fingers. I didn't see it directly but was told in our morning safety meeting that it happened and was brought up in the other meetings that if it happens again then our manager is going to look to fire every single person sleeping in D-Wing (though that is just him being angry, we know that all that will happen is that they will attempt to find out who did it and if found that single person, and all that participated, will be fired). It wasn't even a picture or artistic value (as in not a picture or words or anything) just basic scribbles and squiqqles like someone got it on their fingers and then whipped it off on the wall then got it on their fingers again and whipped it on the wall again and again.
Granted this is not the first time I have heard of this happening in camp so it doesn't really phase me much. Supposedly at the trucker camp that I worked at one year for about a month we would get at least 2-3 times a week a time where someone decided that their schedule was too tight to shower and use the toilet and would therefore then decide to shower and crap in the shower before leaving. Now it happened with enough time spacing it apart that we figured it was the same person going up the road and then coming back again so I know it wasn't all truckers, just one really disgusting person.
About the incident here, the finger painting was a new idea but the thing that got me sort of shaking my head and wondering is that the janitor had no clue that it happened. The one girl that we have cleaning D-Wing is the same one that was removed from this camp because she kept sleeping in for her shift. She was to start at 7 and she slept til 8, so they moved her shift to 8 and she slept til 9. Finally they put her out on 'suspension' but was moved to another camp as a janitor 1 month later. In that camp she did the same thing. They moved her shift an hour up starting from 8 but when it hit her starting at noon and she was still an hour late starting they removed her from camp and said she was not welcome back. Guess that was her suspension cause she came back to this camp a couple weeks later. The entire D-wing consists of about 25 rooms, two bathrooms, one laundry room and a coffee/tv area to sit. She has 12 hours to clean the main areas and make the beds in those rooms with half being on night shift and half being on day shift. Considering the size of the main camp and what the other two housekeepers do and clean the D-wing is no great feat. When it was, however, brought up in the meeting about the fingerpainting in the D-wing, she actually looked at the manager with shock and amazement and said "wow, really? someone did that?" Now she is not the type to do work that is moderately hard/disgusting and keep it to herself. She likes the world to know that she had to clean up someone's spit from the hallway so this would have been at least another 10 minutes to the meeting of her venting about the work she had to do but yet, nothing when it was mentioned in the meeting. Now it makes me wonder, what the heck does she do over there for 12 whole hours that someone can take a crap and smear it on the walls and she does not notice it?
So, yeah, life in camp is progressing as normal. Oh, they are still talking of putting me on night shift next Friday as a baker in training. Should be interesting.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
flying to camp and baking...
Just got the news today, which could mean that it is going to change tomorrow or so like news in camp always does, that we are now flying directly from Edmonton to camp instead of having a layover in Yellowknife. I don't know if that means that the company completed work on the bigger run way to accomodate a 737 jet or if we could always have had a jet but it took the company this long to realize that it might be cheaper to get a big plane and have us fly up in one big hop instead of paying for everyone to fly to YK on a regular flight, over night with a dinner expense and single room charge for everyone (hotels are about $110 for the cheapest per night) and then charter a small plane to hop us into camp. Either which way, this means that we leave camp around noonish and arrive in Edmonton around 3:30 instead of leaving camp around 10amish and laying over in YK for 5 hours and being in Edmonton for 7pm.
Now this means good news and bad news. Good news cause I dont spend 2 days flying to get to camp but instead do it in one great hop and call it finished. Bad news because this means that I don't get to spend that one day coming into camp in YK visiting with my parents and grandmother or even spend the 4 hours to visit them going out of camp. Though I think the best news is that I no longer have to fly Air Canada Jazz and their iffy flight times (they cancelled their flights 3 times the last year I flew to camp with them due to 'mechanical problems' with the one plane they seem to have that is flying that flight to the north).
In camp I heard some news that I am 2nd cook for 3 weeks and then on my last week in camp they are putting me on nights to start my training as a baker. I think they said their plan is that I am going to be 2nd cook for 2 weeks and then go to baker for 2 weeks, which means another 2 weeks of days and then switch to 2 weeks of nights. Normally I wouldnt take this as serious since the camp manager has been telling me this is going to happen for a year or so now but something happened that made me think there was some validity to the news.
I was walking back to my room last night from my shift and Big D (the present baker) came up to me and said my name. I have already told her that unless it is work related duties I don't talk to her (long story, we have a past and havent really talked in a year or so) but she keeps calling my name now and then probably to annoy me. Anyways, here is how it went:
(M)e - *mumble mumble*
Big (D) - I hear they are going to teach you to be a baker next month.
M - they have dangling that carrot in my face for months now, I will believe it when I see it.
D - oh you are going to have so much fun. It is so exciting. It is so great.
M - *mumble* yeah, sure....*walk away*
I know, I am a grumpy old sod but I really just dont like her. So yeah, they wouldnt tell her that I was going to be baker unless it was a distinct possibility. Guess this means that the chances of me being baker just went from 50/50 to 75/25 chance of me getting the training.
The only other thing to mention is a recent news article about how they are looking at possibly altering the national anthem to be more gender neutral. Apparently the original writing of the anthem lyrics had "True patriot love thou dost in us command," written by Stanley Weir in 1908. I guess it was changed later to be the one I have known all along as 'true patriot love, in all thy sons command'. Now, as much as I am a firm believer of not going with the whole gender neutral stuff and all, I think I can agree with this one. Not because it is making the gender neutral and all but simply because the lyrics make more sense the 1908 way than the way I have always sung it. I mean, who are the 'sons' and why are they commanding me to do anything? Is it the government? The 'sons' of the first founders of Canada's independance? I am not one to take commands from a son that I know of. However, when it comes to the notion of the whole nation of Canada, of course I will take commands from it. The country demands patriot love from all of us in Canada. So yeah, I would say that this is a good idea personally.
No real point to that last bit, just read it in the news article and had to put it out there...so yeah, anyways....ummmmmm, *whistles softly* how about them Blue Jays, huh?
Now this means good news and bad news. Good news cause I dont spend 2 days flying to get to camp but instead do it in one great hop and call it finished. Bad news because this means that I don't get to spend that one day coming into camp in YK visiting with my parents and grandmother or even spend the 4 hours to visit them going out of camp. Though I think the best news is that I no longer have to fly Air Canada Jazz and their iffy flight times (they cancelled their flights 3 times the last year I flew to camp with them due to 'mechanical problems' with the one plane they seem to have that is flying that flight to the north).
In camp I heard some news that I am 2nd cook for 3 weeks and then on my last week in camp they are putting me on nights to start my training as a baker. I think they said their plan is that I am going to be 2nd cook for 2 weeks and then go to baker for 2 weeks, which means another 2 weeks of days and then switch to 2 weeks of nights. Normally I wouldnt take this as serious since the camp manager has been telling me this is going to happen for a year or so now but something happened that made me think there was some validity to the news.
I was walking back to my room last night from my shift and Big D (the present baker) came up to me and said my name. I have already told her that unless it is work related duties I don't talk to her (long story, we have a past and havent really talked in a year or so) but she keeps calling my name now and then probably to annoy me. Anyways, here is how it went:
(M)e - *mumble mumble*
Big (D) - I hear they are going to teach you to be a baker next month.
M - they have dangling that carrot in my face for months now, I will believe it when I see it.
D - oh you are going to have so much fun. It is so exciting. It is so great.
M - *mumble* yeah, sure....*walk away*
I know, I am a grumpy old sod but I really just dont like her. So yeah, they wouldnt tell her that I was going to be baker unless it was a distinct possibility. Guess this means that the chances of me being baker just went from 50/50 to 75/25 chance of me getting the training.
The only other thing to mention is a recent news article about how they are looking at possibly altering the national anthem to be more gender neutral. Apparently the original writing of the anthem lyrics had "True patriot love thou dost in us command," written by Stanley Weir in 1908. I guess it was changed later to be the one I have known all along as 'true patriot love, in all thy sons command'. Now, as much as I am a firm believer of not going with the whole gender neutral stuff and all, I think I can agree with this one. Not because it is making the gender neutral and all but simply because the lyrics make more sense the 1908 way than the way I have always sung it. I mean, who are the 'sons' and why are they commanding me to do anything? Is it the government? The 'sons' of the first founders of Canada's independance? I am not one to take commands from a son that I know of. However, when it comes to the notion of the whole nation of Canada, of course I will take commands from it. The country demands patriot love from all of us in Canada. So yeah, I would say that this is a good idea personally.
No real point to that last bit, just read it in the news article and had to put it out there...so yeah, anyways....ummmmmm, *whistles softly* how about them Blue Jays, huh?
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
feta and spinach sandwich
I got my first compliment on one of my sandwiches on the line yesterday. I usually get a mention about one of the salads I make cause it is a person's personal favorite or something but no one ever compliments a sandwich. We had a prime rib sandwich as well as a feta spinach sandwich for the vegetarians. Quite a few omnivores had the feta sandwich and one said that it was 'awesome' and another one said that they tried a bit from someone else and it was 'excellent' and she wished that we had put the sandwich at the front of the line instead of the end because by the time that she got down to the end her plate was full and she couldn't have her own full one. So figure if I get the compliment, then it must be a good sandwich, so here is the recipe if anyone is interested:
Feta and spinach sandwich
Red peppers
yellow peppers
spinach
feta cheese
sharp cheddar cheese sliced (I used medium orange cheddar that was grated)
sliced tomato
garlic butter
french bread, sliced
salt and pepper to taste
cut the peppers in to strips and stir fry them until slightly warm but still crisp. Add in spinach and stir to let the heat from the peppers heat up the spinach.
butter your french bread with the garlic butter and toast.
mix in the feta cheese to the pepper/spinach mixture and prepare to assemble.
Melt the cheddar cheese on the garlic toast in the oven till gooey then top with the pepper/spinach/feta mixture. Top with the slice of tomato and salt and pepper to taste.
Now, the original recipe called for this to be done closed with another piece of toast on top but I left it opened and it turned out pretty decent. I let the heat from the steam line and the heat lamp heat up the tomato on it's own (since it was going to be sitting out there for an hour and if I heated it up before hand it would have just gone to mush) but I suppose if you are eating it right away at your house you could put the whole assembled sandwich in to the oven for a few more minutes to heat up the tomato, or eat it with a cold tomato if you prefer.
I didn't have one since it was hard to keep them on the line themselves and was running short on the french bread to make the sandwich with...plus, well, unless there is a meat on a sandwich it is just a salad in my mind with bread in it.
Feta and spinach sandwich
Red peppers
yellow peppers
spinach
feta cheese
sharp cheddar cheese sliced (I used medium orange cheddar that was grated)
sliced tomato
garlic butter
french bread, sliced
salt and pepper to taste
cut the peppers in to strips and stir fry them until slightly warm but still crisp. Add in spinach and stir to let the heat from the peppers heat up the spinach.
butter your french bread with the garlic butter and toast.
mix in the feta cheese to the pepper/spinach mixture and prepare to assemble.
Melt the cheddar cheese on the garlic toast in the oven till gooey then top with the pepper/spinach/feta mixture. Top with the slice of tomato and salt and pepper to taste.
Now, the original recipe called for this to be done closed with another piece of toast on top but I left it opened and it turned out pretty decent. I let the heat from the steam line and the heat lamp heat up the tomato on it's own (since it was going to be sitting out there for an hour and if I heated it up before hand it would have just gone to mush) but I suppose if you are eating it right away at your house you could put the whole assembled sandwich in to the oven for a few more minutes to heat up the tomato, or eat it with a cold tomato if you prefer.
I didn't have one since it was hard to keep them on the line themselves and was running short on the french bread to make the sandwich with...plus, well, unless there is a meat on a sandwich it is just a salad in my mind with bread in it.
Monday, March 1, 2010
back in camp...again.
My two week eventful stint out of camp finished on the 26th of February. During the time out the Mrs and I engaged in quite a few Chinese New Years dinners, saw a few movies, had our two babies declawed (with some strange attitude changes in them..not as spry or energetic as they used to be) cause they were shredding the Mrs' legs and arms and had our immigration interview (which was a total success..I know, I mentioned it before but just so happy to be done that paperwork rat race and waiting waiting and more waiting game). Now it is back to the old grind...
Life in camp really has not changed much at all. I have been back for nearly 2 and a half days and already there is a guy here who wins the 'twit of the year' award. The guy is the safety officer and I swear everyone thinks he is a moron. In the kitchen we have been given strict orders not to say anything, or at least answer all questions as quick and curt as possible, about anything in the kitchen but direct him to talk to the main supervisor. This is because if we just happen to off-handedly mention that the pump in the room is going all the time then he brings in a handy-man and sets up safety equipment in the room that is not needed and everyone in the kitchen has to take safety courses in the pump equipment just in case it explodes and we are the only ones around and we can fix it and know the dangers. The guy is a complete fanatic.
He is such a fanatic that he doesn't seem to alter to the people but instead expects the people to alter to the regulations. Not saying it is like we are expecting him to rewrite the safety manual so that we can work a band saw without wearing eye protection cause the eye protection scratches our foreheads when we work but on simplier things. The other day a group of people came in later to lunch than normal (around 12:50). The safety guy walks in, sees them eating and goes 'meeting at 1'. The guys at the table go 'but we just got in from working' and the twit stands there with a coffee and an authorative voice and goes 'we have all been working. these are regulations. you knew about the meeting. be there'. After he had gone the table just looked at each other and one said to the other 'f%^* him, we have worked enough today' and they finished eating at their own pace.
This is the same safety guy that I fell asleep in his Occupational Health and Safety meeting back in September or August. They needed two people from our company to go and Henry was one and I was the other. He seemed to want to participate and I didn't. I fell asleep after having listened to the twit talk for about 10 minutes about the proper way to kill a mosquito if you are driving in your truck and one of the little insects is flying around the inside. He also refered to helicopter pilots as 'over glorified taxi drivers' and the passenger has the right to tell a helicopter pilot how many bags the passenger can have and where they are to be put in the helicopter. Yeah my respect for him kind of sunk to a low after that one.
However, even though my respect for him has reached rock bottom after yesterday it has started to dig even lower into the bedrock. One of our cooks accidentally cut his hand on 'the stainless steel' in the kitchen. I had no idea where he did it at the time but the result of the injury to him was 3 stitches in the cut which was on the top part of his hand near the fleshy part between his thumb and first finger. The result to the kitchen was to have the dishwasher walk around all the metal parts of the kitchen with his finger to test for sharp points (kind of like asking someone to drop a match in a gas tank to test if there is any left, if you ask me) and then the handyman, under the orders of the safety officer, was to come into the kitchen with an electric grinder and grind down all those sharp edges. The guys were at it for about an hour to get all the points in the front ground down.
Later that day at lunch I was taking the dishes out front when the twit stopped me and the conversation went like this:
(T)wit - did you ever notice that the metal there was sharp? *waved towards the kitchen*
(M)e - Nope, never knew *no clue as to exactly where he was talking but since I didn't really run my fingers on all the metal points at any time I felt safe in answering honestly*
T - *smug look on his face* you mean, in all your time you had no clue that the metal there was sharp?
M - nope, not a clue. I make a habit of not walking into walls or other solid objects around the kitchen.
*at this point the guy that was at the table with him started to smile and laugh but then it was like he realized who he was sitting with and he fought back his smile*
T - it was a fair question to ask *stony look to his face*
M - yep, it was *walking away*
However, in my mind that last answer of mine should have been 'it was a fair question to ask once and listen to the answer given. It is a stupid question to ask twice and expect a different answer'.
So yeah, looks like the people in camp really have not changed on my time out. My job has though. I have been put back in as the 2nd cook. What I will be doing for the next 3 and a half weeks I am not sure since I have heard something about going to nights for one week later and then back to days to cover for someone here or there. They seem to have things all up in the air and dangling that ever present carrot of the baker position in front of my face but never really putting me in that area. Perhaps I have made the fatal mistake in a job and didn't listen to the sage advice of "don't make yourself irreplaceable or else they won't be able to promote you".
Life in camp really has not changed much at all. I have been back for nearly 2 and a half days and already there is a guy here who wins the 'twit of the year' award. The guy is the safety officer and I swear everyone thinks he is a moron. In the kitchen we have been given strict orders not to say anything, or at least answer all questions as quick and curt as possible, about anything in the kitchen but direct him to talk to the main supervisor. This is because if we just happen to off-handedly mention that the pump in the room is going all the time then he brings in a handy-man and sets up safety equipment in the room that is not needed and everyone in the kitchen has to take safety courses in the pump equipment just in case it explodes and we are the only ones around and we can fix it and know the dangers. The guy is a complete fanatic.
He is such a fanatic that he doesn't seem to alter to the people but instead expects the people to alter to the regulations. Not saying it is like we are expecting him to rewrite the safety manual so that we can work a band saw without wearing eye protection cause the eye protection scratches our foreheads when we work but on simplier things. The other day a group of people came in later to lunch than normal (around 12:50). The safety guy walks in, sees them eating and goes 'meeting at 1'. The guys at the table go 'but we just got in from working' and the twit stands there with a coffee and an authorative voice and goes 'we have all been working. these are regulations. you knew about the meeting. be there'. After he had gone the table just looked at each other and one said to the other 'f%^* him, we have worked enough today' and they finished eating at their own pace.
This is the same safety guy that I fell asleep in his Occupational Health and Safety meeting back in September or August. They needed two people from our company to go and Henry was one and I was the other. He seemed to want to participate and I didn't. I fell asleep after having listened to the twit talk for about 10 minutes about the proper way to kill a mosquito if you are driving in your truck and one of the little insects is flying around the inside. He also refered to helicopter pilots as 'over glorified taxi drivers' and the passenger has the right to tell a helicopter pilot how many bags the passenger can have and where they are to be put in the helicopter. Yeah my respect for him kind of sunk to a low after that one.
However, even though my respect for him has reached rock bottom after yesterday it has started to dig even lower into the bedrock. One of our cooks accidentally cut his hand on 'the stainless steel' in the kitchen. I had no idea where he did it at the time but the result of the injury to him was 3 stitches in the cut which was on the top part of his hand near the fleshy part between his thumb and first finger. The result to the kitchen was to have the dishwasher walk around all the metal parts of the kitchen with his finger to test for sharp points (kind of like asking someone to drop a match in a gas tank to test if there is any left, if you ask me) and then the handyman, under the orders of the safety officer, was to come into the kitchen with an electric grinder and grind down all those sharp edges. The guys were at it for about an hour to get all the points in the front ground down.
Later that day at lunch I was taking the dishes out front when the twit stopped me and the conversation went like this:
(T)wit - did you ever notice that the metal there was sharp? *waved towards the kitchen*
(M)e - Nope, never knew *no clue as to exactly where he was talking but since I didn't really run my fingers on all the metal points at any time I felt safe in answering honestly*
T - *smug look on his face* you mean, in all your time you had no clue that the metal there was sharp?
M - nope, not a clue. I make a habit of not walking into walls or other solid objects around the kitchen.
*at this point the guy that was at the table with him started to smile and laugh but then it was like he realized who he was sitting with and he fought back his smile*
T - it was a fair question to ask *stony look to his face*
M - yep, it was *walking away*
However, in my mind that last answer of mine should have been 'it was a fair question to ask once and listen to the answer given. It is a stupid question to ask twice and expect a different answer'.
So yeah, looks like the people in camp really have not changed on my time out. My job has though. I have been put back in as the 2nd cook. What I will be doing for the next 3 and a half weeks I am not sure since I have heard something about going to nights for one week later and then back to days to cover for someone here or there. They seem to have things all up in the air and dangling that ever present carrot of the baker position in front of my face but never really putting me in that area. Perhaps I have made the fatal mistake in a job and didn't listen to the sage advice of "don't make yourself irreplaceable or else they won't be able to promote you".
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