bite my tongue..oh so bite my tongue

The IT guy is back in camp and the internet connection has gone all funky. We have been up and down for the last couple days and everyone is complaining that it is broken and all but the IT guy says that everything is running smoothly. All we can say to that is that if it was running smoothly then the managers wouldn’t be having the entire camp complaining to him every day that the internet connection is down and not responding.

Had a bit of a fight with the old dishwasher that we have in camp. His favourite saying these days as the dishwasher is “Tony told me this”. Henry, the old dishwasher, has basically two regular duties for his job, clean dirty dishes and keep an eye on the vegetable pails (potatoes, carrots, celery, onions) to keep them stocked up. We told him awhile ago that we need at least 2 pails of these items at all times. We said he can wait till it gets down to one pail but after that he has to fill them up. For the last couple days we have watched the pails dwindle down to almost nothing and no refilling has been done. Finally the other dishwasher came to me and said that Henry is waiting for us to ask him to fill the buckets cause apparently “Tony told him” that unless the cooks ask for the pails to be filled, not to do it. About 10 minutes later Henry came up and asked “So what is the magic word today?” and I asked what he meant and he said “what pails do you need filled?” I just looked at him and went into a huge rant swearing at the idiot and calling him a moron. He has only two regular duties and I felt that I didn’t have the time or the energy to babysit him since it is not that hard to count the pails and fill them when needed. He ended up doing the vegetables and he asked me how he should do something later and my only response to him was “I don’t know, what does Tony say?”. He ended up doing it the way he wanted to but had to ask me if that was a ‘smart ass response’. In the end I am doing the vegetable pails now because it is easier and quicker for me to look and keep track of them than try to baby sit him.

I am going to baker this Wednesday, which should be interesting. I figure I have proven my theory about them putting me on baking. In the other camps I had no baking cooking books or any tools and they would get to me cover Donna cause she was too drunk to get on the plane to come to work for a couple days. I then started to bring in my baking books and all till I had a really good collection here. They then stopped to ask me to bake. I think with my arsenal of cooking books in camp I was asked to bake maybe a week or a couple of days. Last time I went out I decided to cut down on the crap I had in camp so I took about 75% of my books home and only brought in the bare necessities of books. Of course what happens? I get asked to go to baker for 2 weeks straight. I am fully prepared, not a chance of being baker; I am under prepared, I am put on baker for a long time. The fates have it in for me. Even better is that Sheldon is back but he is going to days as the 2nd cook helper. Talk about pressure now. Sheldon, a really really great baker is on days and I am doing baking at night. Everyone in camp is going to be asking him why he is cutting vegetables on days for the 1st cook while I am stumbling through baking. Talk about pressure.

My ‘nearly get in trouble cause of my big mouth’ moment came the other day. Radio was telling me about me going to baking and all and Sheldon and Roger on days. This is basically what he told me:

Radio: You will be going to nights as the baker and the new guy is going to breakfast cook with his wife as his helper. I figure that you wont be of much help to him at nights cause you aren’t that great of a baker, no offence, I know that Donna could help him out cause she has been baking for such a long time that she could do it with her eyes closed but you will need extra time.

Of course my first reaction to that was to say “really? Well maybe you should tell Donna to start baking with her eyes open and maybe we wouldn't have such crappy desserts when she bakes” but I bit my tongue on that one. Then was going to mention “I am sure that Donna could help him with breakfast stuff but she doesn’t help the breakfast cook cause that would cut into her 4 hour breaks at night” but again, bit my tongue. I ended up just looking at him and nodding. I find that is the best way to handle that sort of thing with him. I say little and just nod and wonder exactly how much BS he can shovel in a day and wonder if he really believes the crap that comes out of his mouth at times.

peeing in the shower....and MISSING

ok, nearly a couple weeks so quick update. I have to say that the last week and a half in camp have been about the most relaxed days that I have had in camp as the 2nd cook in a long time. Why is this? the extra hand in the kitchen definitely has something to do with it that is for sure. For the first week we had Peter (new guy, northerner, works really well, quiet but will talk when you approach him, knows his way around the kitchen but a little slow on the knife but, and this is the most important thing, he never takes breaks. Works hard all the way through his shift. A totally new concept for most of the northerners that we hire here in camp) but he left last Wednesday and we got Nick back as the 1st cook so Chris went to the helper and I stayed 2nd. Still nice to see that they took a few of the duties that were originally mine.

On the plus side I am not running around doing about 5 things at once trying to get everything done and barely coming under the wire. On the down side, I realize how boring this job really is when you are not running around doing 5 things at once trying to get everything done and barely coming in under the wire. The work is like that annoying person in school that kept hanging around you all the time (if you are a girl that person was probably a boy who was 'in love' with you; if you are a guy chances are it was that geeky little guy that you were nice to and he idolized you and wanted to be just like you) and basically being a pain. When they were around you wished they would leave you along and you could get some peace and quiet but then once they left (either cause they took the hint finally or had to go away on vacation) you missed having them around and you realized how boring most of the days were. That is what it is like here. I am slightly bored doing the same old things and am going out of my way looking for more work to keep myself busy. For steak night instead of just regular baked potatoes I made 120 stuffed baked potatoes as well as the regular baked potatoes. However, still enjoying the chance to sit down for daily meals of lunch and supper.

As to other annoying things, for the first week the IT guy was out of camp and the internet worked. It was slow and went down for one evening but was up the next morning instantly. The IT guy came in and within 24 hours is was down on a regular basis and then yesterday it was down for a whole 24 hours. So yeah, that is one of the biggest annoyances so far.

Though this one is a close second. I can understand that some people pee in the shower. I accept that it is possible that when I go in to shower up here in camp that someone has probably peed in the shower before me. It is with this knowledge in my mind that makes me spray the shower down with the disinfectant that they supply and then run the shower for a couple minutes to hopefully wash as much of anything away as possible as well as wearing flip flops in the shower. I figure this is the extent that I could possible go minus bringing in shower cleaner and a sponge with me and cleaning the shower completely every morning. However, I find it really annoying, and slightly scary, when some people pee in the shower and MISS the shower completely. I can understand missing the toilet bowl first thing in the morning since it is early, your tired, the bowl is soooo small with one eye closed and the other half open with sleep and you are trying to hit it with a squirt gun. It is kind of like one of those carnival games where you have to squirt a clowns mouth that is about the size of a quarter from 6 feet away with a squirt gun. Very little actually gets inside the clowns mouth. However this is a shower. The guy is basically standing INSIDE the toilet bowl and he missed. I mean, either how tired or stupid can he be to miss the shower????? Of course I was about to walk into the shower room, saw this big pool of yellow water on the floor and instantly walked out of that shower room and went to another one. Someone else can clean up that mess.

So that is the fun that I am having in camp. 2nd cook for the next couple days and then I am supposed to go to nights as the baker. However that could change as we are getting a new 2nd cook hired that is supposed to start on Wednesday. On one hand I am going to say that he wont last long since we haven't had a 2nd cook come in and last in the position for long because it is so much work. However, with there being an extra person in the kitchen it might be slow enough that this new person will stick around. Will see what happens. Though I know for certain when it comes to baking I am not going to be doing anything funky or too extreme. Just going to do the small simple things like pies, chocolate cake, brownies, butter tarts and that sort of thing till I get them down pat.