Assisting, Generally.

In Antarctica, work days are ten hours long, and there are six of them every week. Efficiency is valued less than "looking busy," productivity takes a back seat to bureaucracy, and the entry for "planning" has been blacked out of every dictionary. Managers inhabit a parallel universe where logic has no bearing, and punish the slightest infractions with the dreaded "verbal written warning."

Perhaps this explains my reluctance to take up the subject of work. Until recently, my job as general assistant has been an incredible disappointment. I don't know what was worse--the days with nothing to do, or the days full of painfully pointless (yet micro-managed) busywork. I came very near to quitting several times. But all that wouldn't make for a very entertaining blog, so I'll try my best to focus on the most interesting tidbits. Nonetheless, this could be a rather dull entry; if so, I'm afraid I've accurately characterized the job.

But don't feel too badly for me--recently my duties changed dramatically, and for the better. This will be a long entry as it is, so I'll write about that next time.

Officially, I'm assigned to a small team of pipefitters and general assistants working on the fuels projects around town. The biggest such project was building a pipeline from the fuel tanks to the helocopter pad. This is where we spent most of our time: under Observation Hill, working out of the white shipping container on the left. If you zoom in, you can pick out the completed 6" diameter pipeline cutting accross the bottom of the hill, a yellow welding machine, and my two fellow GAs, John and Stevo.

Welding the pipe together is left to the certified pipefitters, but pretty much everything else is up to us--guiding heavy equipment to move the pipe into position, cutting pipe sections to length, and as seen here, assembling the stanchions the pipeline rests on.

This was a decent tasking for two reasons: first, it wasn't pointless--there was a clear objective that we had a hand in achieving. Second, we got to play with fire! Here I'm preparing an oxy-acetylene torch for cutting the stanchion steel.

Pure physical labor wasn't too bad either--you could listen to music, get lost in the work, and come home tired and full of endorphins. This manhole was particularly challenging: we needed a hammer drill to break through the ice and buckets to haul out each shovel-full of snow. (Pointless work, exhibit 523: After chipping away at this hole for an entire day, we were told to "never mind, we don't need it dug out after all.")

One interesting task involved helping out at the new power plant: read the plans, correct any inconsistencies between the plans and the plant, and tag every valve with the appropriate label (here, I'm decked out in fall protection to reach valves 30 feet up). Essentially, "explore the plant and figure out how it works." But of course it was too good to be true. Never mind that I excelled at this task, and even helped the veterans find errors in their own tagging; once the manager found me being useful, I was ordered to get back to my own job: sponging down the walls.

Hope that helps explain what I actually DO down here. It ain't much, but to use the popular Antarctic cliche--it's a harsh continent.

Working hard and/or hardly working,
pepe