Ground hog day.

To elaborate on my most recent post. I will try to relate to you a typical day on site. After finding all your crew members and foremen ,(it is really not hard there is a pre determined place to meet). It is call a sea can or maybe a temporary hoarding of some sort. A sea can is a container off of a ship that is used for the purpose of storing equipment and most of all a place to hide and keep warm. While standing around waiting for your foreman everybody tells jokes and teases one another. This can be quite amusing. Cultural diversity is very accepted here.My crew alone has East Indians,Chinese,Newfoundlanders,Nova Scotians, Cape Bretoners(yes I know Cape Breton is in Nova Scotia),Flatliners (from saskatchewan),Albertans, French guys from New Brunswick. I am almost positive that it is these situations that racial jokes come from. I don' t mean the bad ones, I mean ones like a Newfie and a Flatliner walk into a bar and see this Chinese guy, blah blah blah that type. I never laughed so much. When you put that many different backgrounds together you are bound to have a lot of mis-understandings. Once the foreman arrives, the work scope is discussed and any questions that come up are answered. Now we must fill out our THA's (task hazard acessments). This is basically a list of all the type of work that will be performed and how it should be done safely. Now that these are completed and signed off by the foreman work can begin. The workers will now gather all tools and or equipment for the jobs at hand a venture out in the massive plant. When work has started and you walk up onto one of the tall platforms it looks like little worker bees building a hive for there beloved Queen. In this case it is the oil company, and believe me they act like a Queen. While all this work is taking place there is a lot of machinery moving around like zoom booms, man lifts and of course big cranes. When I first walked on site I thought there was a murder I never saw so much caution tape. The caution tape is so that areas can be designated for work that might be above or in the imediate area. Cross red tape your fired. Unless you are the one working within the red tape. You can tell who are the electricians they wear yellow hard hats and newly hired labourers wear green for three months and then there are blue hats which is all other tradespeople like pipefitters,welders and labourers that have been on the job longer than three months. Of course then ther are the white hats. Don't piss off a white hat. Some are just regular foremen which can still cause you trouble, but some are general foremen or supervisors and even safety personale, its hard to tell until you have been here for awhile. All of the above can spell a quick ride to the gate if you piss them off. I always feel like I should go home with a prize at the end of the day, with all the beeping and whistles and horns not to mention the odd rig rat alarm, I feel like I am in a huge outdoor casino. A rig rat is a sour gas alarm if one goes off or a you hear an air raid siren walk don't run to the nearest muster point and gather with all your crew members so when the plant blows you can all blow up to together. One of many other things that don't come to mind right now is safety. Saftey is the most important thing out here this makes every thing go very slow. There is a lot of procedure so if you are used to working fast then you better hurry up and wait because this plant won't get built in a day. It will be a lot of days just like today.