decision made

Looks like the decision has been made without me even saying a word. I went to Radio the day after my first post and started to ask more questions like "if I do get the raise, when does it take effect?" and "if I accept the raise does that mean I am agreeing to be day 2nd cook till the day I die?" I got a couple answers and left it at that to rethink. Next thing I know he comes to me and tells me to scan and send my recent pay stub to him so he can fight head office for the raise. I called the Mrs and she got it done right away and an hour later I was told to 'talk nicely to me (Radio)' now since I got the raise. So the plan is that I am on 2nd cook for this 4 week stint in camp then out for 2 weeks and when I come back I am on a two weeks 2nd cook and then two weeks breakfast cook. Guess it is not a bad compromise.

'Twit of the day' award goes out to one of the new guys in camp. The 1st cook was out grabbing a quick cup of coffee around 10:30am yesterday when one of the new guys stopped him in the dining room. With all the calm in the world and like he was on time for breakfast he asked if he could get a couple fried eggs from the grill. The 1st cook looked at him and politely told him that the grill was shut off and breakfast ended at 8:00am. The guy frowned and made a sort of 'harmph' sound and walked away. The 1st cook came up to me and relayed the experience with a different wording. The 1st cook comes up to me and in a dopey/Gomer Pyle kind of voice askes "soo, umm, what are the chances of me getting a couple fried eggs?" and I looked at him blankly cause I wasn't too sure at that moment if he was actually asking me to make them for the guy or not and he quickly responded with a serious "about as much chance as hell freezing over and the devil ice skating across the ponds". Guess some people just can't see the big signs that we have on the entry way into the dining room stating the hours of breakfast/lunch/dinner.

Now I am not sure how you would classify this, and it probably isn't that amusing but in my head I find it really really funny. You know, like the kind of ironic curious funny that makes you smile and go "riiiiight". You know, like if you hear from a friend who is in charge of civic planning of traffic routes and lanes is on his way to make a speech on how to improve traffic flow for speed and efficiency but is late to get there cause he is caught in a traffic jam. So the main paper pushers of the company have decided that since we are getting bigger than our usual 110 man exploration camp but are slowly climbing in numbers (feeding 168 now which are all the beds in the camp, plus feeding 30 more that are flown in daily from Cambridge Bay because we dont have the beds to put them up for the whole night) then what we should do is have training in certain areas to stop possible future law suits. There are going to be a mandatory class over the next couple days (we only have to go to one though but the kitchen staff are staggered so the kitchen isnt totally empty for most of the morning) on Anti-sexual harrassment and Gender Equal Opportunities in the camp. What I find really interesting is that the two people that are sent in to give this talk and class have got to be two of the most beautiful ladies that have ever been allowed in camp. I mean, we might all be biased out here because we basically look at 160 men and have only 8 women walking around. With 4 of those women being geotechs (they have a reputation for not showering, changing clothes or doing anything hygenic), 3 of them northern housekeeping and 1 an office worker, we sort of have a shortage of eye candy. When the two ladies walked in to have some lunch the entire kitchen broke out in their usual comments but with more flare and vigor. The 63 year old dishwasher was talking about going to medic and asking for some Viagra to be shipped in express. So I guess that just goes to show that we definitly need this kind of course in camp if them walking in causes this much trash talk but what I sort of smile about is that the people giving the talk are so cute that you actually think of harrassing them. Anyways, yeah, just a sort of twisted mind laugh that I have.

Oh, one thing that I thinking of mentioning is in the part of gender equalality part, gonna ask why exactly we have two bathrooms designated as pure female washrooms. The washrooms are basically self sustained washing quarters on their own. Basically, think of your bathroom with sink, toilet, shower and a door that closes and locks. So, not like if I was going #1 a girl was going to walk in on me to shower. However, two of them in each wing are 'female' washrooms and if a guy goes in and uses one of them and is seen he is fired. If we had gender quality, shouldn't the girls have to have the same possibility of not having a free bathroom to shower in like the rest of the guys?