Work Life How much does work weigh

Greetings Bloggies.

Balance will be covered in a separate post. So I have been at the Minto site for as of this moment 13days, and 14days in the Yukon.  As is the norm I can not and will not talk specifics.  What I will say which is less the said on the Capstone mining site, is we are looking for copper.  I look at rock.  hundreds of meters of it a day.  My bench holds 21 boxes, I am expect to log that many boxes in a day.  This is a reasonable productivity estimate once the kinks get worked out which they are, though not completely.

Now to log means that not only do I track down the breaks in rock type and where there are ore forming minerals, but also that I define sample intervals and then move the boxes, each weighing around 60 pounds, or 30ish Kg, and photograph them, then move them to storage.  

To meet base expectations I would have to move a total of 42 boxes, once to load once to reload my bench, I have help some of the time, but that only goes so far to relieve the strain.  Added to the daily detailed logging expectations are the day and evening quick logs which can comprise any where between 2 and 24 boxes most of which will have to be brought in looked over and eventually moved back outside.  And now I know why my shoulders hurt. 

I went and figured out how much this evenings quick log weighed, a quick and dirty hack at the math. Radius of NQ core 2.38cm. Density of Rock approximated at 2.65(quartz) the core box can be approximated at 5m.  For this example I am using tonights abundant and exceptionally large quick log of 140 meters over 24 boxes, at least half of which I moved. 

Volume of a cylinder, pi*r^2*h where h is height

(Pi*2.38^2*14000 * 2.65)/1000 = 660 kg 

Volume times density yielded mass in grams.

Its clear that this work strains a body quickly, and my motivation to become more productive is limited because its just too physically tiring.

So now that I have going sciencey,  its time to consider the other elements of camp life.  The Kitchen is unreliable, with dishes ranging from bland to salting and not enough room in between, a bottle of Tabasco sauce held Franks Red hot in it this disappointed me greatly, not unlike some one offering you a beer and you end up with a warm Budlight. Technically the same thing as what you wanted but a lot closer to water then what you had hoped for.  The coffee sucks.  There is no way around it.  Its hot its brown its bitter.  A few times I have drank it cold, paint thinner would go down smoother.   

 

The location is lovely but I shuttle between the same two places and neither give me the view of the mountains to the East that I want.  I currently have less responsibility then I did when I left my last longer term job, being that I am at an arms length to the drilling operation.  Its a bit odd that logging core is all I am doing, I don't go out to set up drill collars or shut down holes, the managers do that and I am not one.  

This brings me back to an old saw of mine.  That is, the space I can be promoted into on this current path is not one I want to be on.  The extra stress of management with the being out in the field away form the chance of me getting a live stable enough to have Kittens in is not where I want to end up.  I must find some one in this industry who is in a spot above where I want to be and get me a mentor, to help me move to where I want to be.  Which is behind a desk doing computery mapping or data crunching, fixing things. 

One of my key happy moments on this job was on my first day on the ground, hitting on a fix hidden in an error message.  My IT know how lead me understand that error and it felt good. 

 Now most days here my having gone to BCIT has gained me nothing.  I killed a year and found a city I loved and ended my first long term relationship but did not gain the edge yet to escape bush work.  As I said earlier I grew up in a cabin in the woods I have been trying to leave ever since.  

Really is it too much to ask for a live settled enough that I can have cats.  I am 31, I can cook clean, make my self chocolate truffles, bread, cake, pie.  I can dress well ( took me this long) I just want a normal life where I don't miss out on things because work is half way across the country.  

A note on the tone on that above paragraph, it is not intended to be bitter, only that this is now my default position.