Thursday, March 31, 2005
Nearly There
Well, my time in Turkey is coming to an end. While I do like Turkey, 6 weeks (or is it 7) is a long way to spend away from home. The work here at teh plant has been slow and frustrating with lots of quality control problems, and way to much work to do, for the small crew of ex-pats.
It's certainly been a learning experience about many of the things we take for granted in Australia. We've got half of the plant running, but we've got a couple of critical items that are stopping us from getting the rest going.
Hopefully that will be resolved soon, but I won't be here to see it.
Things between Jodie and I have been a bit strange of late. There's a little tension in the air. I think a lot of it is due to the big changes that are about to happen, particularly on Jodie's part, with moving house, leaving her job and family to come and live closer to me. It makes me feel quite humble though I wish that there was more that I could do for her, firstly to make the move easier, but also to show her just how much I appreciate it.
She got a really encouraging email from one of the jobs that she applied for, which I was really happy to hear about, though, unfortunatly she did miss out, because of a delay in communications. I hope that she's still encouraged by it though, because she has some great skills that most company's would find appealing in personnel for their administration departments.
It would have meant changing our plans for my return to Australia (which is to get our diving tickets on the Ningaloo reef) though it would have been a very small price to pay to delay this, if it meant that Jodie would have had the question of her employment sorted out. I'm sure that she won't be hunting for a job for very long.
In other news, I managed to get a day off (that's the second in 7 weeks) and went and visited Efes. Efes are some ruins, south of Izmir which features roman, greek and egyptian influence's as well. It's a pretty amazing place, and the ruins are in such a good state, that most of the carvings can still clearly be seen. Even down to a game of backgammon carved into a marble block.
Anyway, life is generally good, though I am weary at the moment. The days have been long and the work hard, but it's going to make the break that I will have in about a weeks time, all that much more gratifying.
It's certainly been a learning experience about many of the things we take for granted in Australia. We've got half of the plant running, but we've got a couple of critical items that are stopping us from getting the rest going.
Hopefully that will be resolved soon, but I won't be here to see it.
Things between Jodie and I have been a bit strange of late. There's a little tension in the air. I think a lot of it is due to the big changes that are about to happen, particularly on Jodie's part, with moving house, leaving her job and family to come and live closer to me. It makes me feel quite humble though I wish that there was more that I could do for her, firstly to make the move easier, but also to show her just how much I appreciate it.
She got a really encouraging email from one of the jobs that she applied for, which I was really happy to hear about, though, unfortunatly she did miss out, because of a delay in communications. I hope that she's still encouraged by it though, because she has some great skills that most company's would find appealing in personnel for their administration departments.
It would have meant changing our plans for my return to Australia (which is to get our diving tickets on the Ningaloo reef) though it would have been a very small price to pay to delay this, if it meant that Jodie would have had the question of her employment sorted out. I'm sure that she won't be hunting for a job for very long.
In other news, I managed to get a day off (that's the second in 7 weeks) and went and visited Efes. Efes are some ruins, south of Izmir which features roman, greek and egyptian influence's as well. It's a pretty amazing place, and the ruins are in such a good state, that most of the carvings can still clearly be seen. Even down to a game of backgammon carved into a marble block.
Anyway, life is generally good, though I am weary at the moment. The days have been long and the work hard, but it's going to make the break that I will have in about a weeks time, all that much more gratifying.
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
Drinking, Printing and Angry Girlfriends
Printing first of all. I needed to print a drawing last night, and in order to access the printer, I needed to reconfigure all of my computer network settings, and now I can't change it back, because of Window's "I know better than you" method of not letting you reconfigure domain names unless you are connected to the DHCP server.
I mean, If I leave the domain I can log on normally, without any network support, but god forbid, if I join another network temporarily, then I can't get my profile back, come hell or high water, until I'm re-verified on my domain.
Why?????
It defies logic.
Blah,
Drinking and Angry Girlfriends is kinda related, and is making a bad day even worse. Last night I was "invited" out to dinner, in the kind of "we are taking our visitors out for dinner and you WILL be there" kind of way. After running around madly after work, to try to get the aforementioned printer working and get my drawing printed out (which took 50 minutes) I had to run home (the office is 500m from the guesthouse where I am staying) and get changed, to go back downstairs and meet our guests at the hotel, (which is directly below the office).
The dinner was filled with lots of pompous self gratifying ego building as the boys from the Big Company proceeded to tell us "small fry" why we could never make a project work, and that any opinions we had on the mechanics of our process were grossly in error and that they were the only people in the world who could do it.
Despite the fact that we've already demonstrated the process and are getting better results than them.
Over the course of the night I had about 4 glasses of red wine and finally managed to extract my self from the night of tortuous conversation to walk home to bed at 11pm.
I think the physical exhaustion of the previous few days combined with the alcohol really hit my system because I felt pretty rotten this morning. I've had a couple of coffee's and quite a quiet morning, and I'm starting to feel a bit better now, but Jodie has this impression of me attending some wild orgy last night, and getting completely plastered.
It's really difficult explaining to her just how inane these types of evenings really are. I think people have this impression of mining executives as these young vibrant horny "blokes", when generally they are sad old sacks of flesh that seem intent of stroking their ego's at the expense of every other person that they have ever had contact with.
It's really frustrating, that I need to endure both the participation in such evenings, and have suspicion's cast by my girlfriend about my motives after a few wines.
Almost without exception, dinner is served with wine. Last night, the Raki (a local Turkish version of Ouzo) was being consumed by all and sundry. I managed to wrangle my way out of that, on the basis that I needed to be up early, but I did have a few glasses of wine over dinner. As it turned out, it was probably one too many for my system to process in the evening, and consequently some of it caught up with me this morning.
I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do, when I'm insisted to dinner on evenings such as this. Not drinking at all is becoming an increasingly attractive option. It reduces the headaches the next day, both in a physical sense, and the issues that come about from my beloved, though I do enjoy a glass of good red wine.
I'd much prefer to have Jodie by my side at evenings like this, because it will allow me partake in some decent conversation over dinner rather than enduring the drivel that often accompanies the self important pomp that is so often the subject of such evenings.
I think Jodie is worried about stories of prostitutes and wild nights that has become associated with the excesses of money. I will admit (and have already talked to Jodie) about one evening where prostitutes were apparently on offer. It's a bit hard to tell sometimes whether someone is making a genuine offer, or merely joking, but irrespective there were no acceptances of the said offer from either myself, or the others present at the evening.
Of all the dinner's I have gone to in the mining industry, only twice have such suggestions been made. I'm sure that it happens to some extent in the industry, but I'm equally convinced that this is not confined to the mining industry.
Anyway, all in all it was a particularly dull and painful night that resulted in a particulaly dull and painful headache this morning.
I mean, If I leave the domain I can log on normally, without any network support, but god forbid, if I join another network temporarily, then I can't get my profile back, come hell or high water, until I'm re-verified on my domain.
Why?????
It defies logic.
Blah,
Drinking and Angry Girlfriends is kinda related, and is making a bad day even worse. Last night I was "invited" out to dinner, in the kind of "we are taking our visitors out for dinner and you WILL be there" kind of way. After running around madly after work, to try to get the aforementioned printer working and get my drawing printed out (which took 50 minutes) I had to run home (the office is 500m from the guesthouse where I am staying) and get changed, to go back downstairs and meet our guests at the hotel, (which is directly below the office).
The dinner was filled with lots of pompous self gratifying ego building as the boys from the Big Company proceeded to tell us "small fry" why we could never make a project work, and that any opinions we had on the mechanics of our process were grossly in error and that they were the only people in the world who could do it.
Despite the fact that we've already demonstrated the process and are getting better results than them.
Over the course of the night I had about 4 glasses of red wine and finally managed to extract my self from the night of tortuous conversation to walk home to bed at 11pm.
I think the physical exhaustion of the previous few days combined with the alcohol really hit my system because I felt pretty rotten this morning. I've had a couple of coffee's and quite a quiet morning, and I'm starting to feel a bit better now, but Jodie has this impression of me attending some wild orgy last night, and getting completely plastered.
It's really difficult explaining to her just how inane these types of evenings really are. I think people have this impression of mining executives as these young vibrant horny "blokes", when generally they are sad old sacks of flesh that seem intent of stroking their ego's at the expense of every other person that they have ever had contact with.
It's really frustrating, that I need to endure both the participation in such evenings, and have suspicion's cast by my girlfriend about my motives after a few wines.
Almost without exception, dinner is served with wine. Last night, the Raki (a local Turkish version of Ouzo) was being consumed by all and sundry. I managed to wrangle my way out of that, on the basis that I needed to be up early, but I did have a few glasses of wine over dinner. As it turned out, it was probably one too many for my system to process in the evening, and consequently some of it caught up with me this morning.
I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do, when I'm insisted to dinner on evenings such as this. Not drinking at all is becoming an increasingly attractive option. It reduces the headaches the next day, both in a physical sense, and the issues that come about from my beloved, though I do enjoy a glass of good red wine.
I'd much prefer to have Jodie by my side at evenings like this, because it will allow me partake in some decent conversation over dinner rather than enduring the drivel that often accompanies the self important pomp that is so often the subject of such evenings.
I think Jodie is worried about stories of prostitutes and wild nights that has become associated with the excesses of money. I will admit (and have already talked to Jodie) about one evening where prostitutes were apparently on offer. It's a bit hard to tell sometimes whether someone is making a genuine offer, or merely joking, but irrespective there were no acceptances of the said offer from either myself, or the others present at the evening.
Of all the dinner's I have gone to in the mining industry, only twice have such suggestions been made. I'm sure that it happens to some extent in the industry, but I'm equally convinced that this is not confined to the mining industry.
Anyway, all in all it was a particularly dull and painful night that resulted in a particulaly dull and painful headache this morning.
Friday, March 11, 2005
Rollin Right Along
I think the image says it all.
Dunno how they are going to fix this one, and I'm not 100% sure how it happened, but it did.
In other news today, it sleeted and snowed today near Izmir in Turkey which is rare for this reason, and rarer still in spring.
About 2 or 3 inches of snow up the mountain, and about an hour of sleet and snow this morning on the way into work.
It's all very odd.
Jodie and I have had a series of long conversations over the last few days, and I'm feeling closer to her than ever. It's great. I'm so looking forward to being closer to her when I'm back in Australia.
She's drinking milo and watching a dog give birth at the moment, which is kinda wierd, I thought, but I guess if you are going to drink something while watching a dog give birth, milo's about as good as any.
Anyway, busy day, so I'd better get back to it.
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
Getting Down and Dirty
OK I got conned today. Downright cheated....
In a meeting the subject of Bulk SG samples was broached by the Operations manger and my reply was that short of swimming, there was no way to get a sample. I challenged him that if he could produce a 1kg sample from the sampling site, then I would do the Bulk SG test for him (which requires taking a 30L sample (exactly approximately - ie approximately 30L, but measured with precision) and weighing it.
Lo and behold, he produces a bag, so off I go, with a barrel and a shovel to get my sample.
I arrive at the sampling site, so note that he has NOT in fact taken his sample from there, but from a much safer site further along the heap, where there is a stable footing underneath. Anyway, we needed the number, so I took the sample anyway (though from HIS sampling location, rather than the proper one (which would have necessitated being waist deep in mud).
I still got right muddy as the slurry from the new sampling site oozed down the hill and over my boots.
Moral of this story.
NEVER, TRUST A POM!!!
:P
In a meeting the subject of Bulk SG samples was broached by the Operations manger and my reply was that short of swimming, there was no way to get a sample. I challenged him that if he could produce a 1kg sample from the sampling site, then I would do the Bulk SG test for him (which requires taking a 30L sample (exactly approximately - ie approximately 30L, but measured with precision) and weighing it.
Lo and behold, he produces a bag, so off I go, with a barrel and a shovel to get my sample.
I arrive at the sampling site, so note that he has NOT in fact taken his sample from there, but from a much safer site further along the heap, where there is a stable footing underneath. Anyway, we needed the number, so I took the sample anyway (though from HIS sampling location, rather than the proper one (which would have necessitated being waist deep in mud).
I still got right muddy as the slurry from the new sampling site oozed down the hill and over my boots.
Moral of this story.
NEVER, TRUST A POM!!!
:P
Getting Down and Dirty
OK I got conned today. Downright cheated....
In a meeting the subject of Bulk SG samples was broached by the Operations manger and my reply was that short of swimming, there was no way to get a sample. I challenged him that if he could produce a 1kg sample from the sampling site, then I would do the Bulk SG test for him (which requires taking a 30L sample (exactly approximately - ie approximately 30L, but measured with precision) and weighing it.
Lo and behold, he produces a bag, so off I go, with a barrel and a shovel to get my sample.
I arrive at the sampling site, so note that he has NOT in fact taken his sample from there, but from a much safer site further along the heap, where there is a stable footing underneath. Anyway, we needed the number, so I took the sample anyway (though from HIS sampling location, rather than the proper one (which would have necessitated being waist deep in mud).
I still got right muddy as the slurry from the new sampling site oozed down the hill and over my boots.
Moral of this story.
NEVER, TRUST A POM!!!
:P
In a meeting the subject of Bulk SG samples was broached by the Operations manger and my reply was that short of swimming, there was no way to get a sample. I challenged him that if he could produce a 1kg sample from the sampling site, then I would do the Bulk SG test for him (which requires taking a 30L sample (exactly approximately - ie approximately 30L, but measured with precision) and weighing it.
Lo and behold, he produces a bag, so off I go, with a barrel and a shovel to get my sample.
I arrive at the sampling site, so note that he has NOT in fact taken his sample from there, but from a much safer site further along the heap, where there is a stable footing underneath. Anyway, we needed the number, so I took the sample anyway (though from HIS sampling location, rather than the proper one (which would have necessitated being waist deep in mud).
I still got right muddy as the slurry from the new sampling site oozed down the hill and over my boots.
Moral of this story.
NEVER, TRUST A POM!!!
:P
Monday, March 07, 2005
Micromanaging
[Listening to: Billie Ray Martin - Honey (Chicane Remix) - 21st Century Trance 2 (Disc 3) (8:52)]
What is it with absent managers wanting to make decisions (irrational ones at that) from absentia? Shooting from the hip without being armed with all the facts.
Why do mining company's insist on having the headoffice, so far removed from the actual place where the work is being done. It creates confusion and duplication of many of the personnel and functions. It's not condusive to efficient flow of information and the managers still want to micromanage the workers as if they were on site.
An example is the commissioning project we want to do. We have two sources of liquor that we can use for the project but one of the managers doesn't want to use either of them. So somehow we have to pump liquor into the plant from nowhere...
The managers are all in their cushy offices away from the site where the workers on the ground are busting their butts to get it all finished and running, and we get these decisions out of left field. There are substantial delays with procuring equipment at the best of times, but when purchase requests have to be beamed half way around the world to get a signature, it adds considerably to the delay time, and we cop the flack for delaying the project.
Grrrrr....
If I ever get to the level of power in such an organization I'd move the entire office to site, so that problems can be dealt with there and then. If a presence is required in a city for whatever reason, it will be as small as possible but everything will be run, from the site where the money is being made.
Sure it will put a few accountants, and lawyers out of their comfort zones, but it's completely necessary. Those people (particularly the safety department) need to be on the ground. They need to know what is being ordered and why. If they are on site then they can immediately see that we need the widget to join these two pipes together or we're going to make a mighty big mess. There's nothing to debate. It's required. No option. No need for a discussion panel. The $10 you might save by ringing around is more than lost by the wages of people sitting around twiddling their thumbs and lost production.
Just get a friggin widget and now. I don't care where from, and I don't care what it costs, but I need it, and I need it now.
Sure, cost control is important, and if it's that important then get your stock control system working properly so that we don't have the necessity for reactive purchasing.
Blah
This is a frustrating job. Especially when decisions are being made without any information at all. There are no basis for the figures, and no-one has bothered to check if the assumptions are valid.
Speaking of assumptions, I had a long SMS conversation with Jodie last night about that very thing. Challenging the assumptions that you make in your life. Whether they be the dimensions of a slab of concrete or how we think people perceive us. If we don't verify our assumptions then EVERYTHING, every decision, every calculation that we base on them is in jeapordy of being wrong.
We don't go building a house without checking the stability of the ground and the quality of the concrete pad, otherwise there is the danger that the whole thing could come crumbling down. So it is with everything. It's the primary reason why I've been having so many problems with spreadsheets and calculations. I made the wrong assumption that the data provided to me was correct. In reality, this was far from the case, and the more I check, the more inconsistencies and false data I uncover.
I'm in the process of evaluating these assumptions, so that hopefully, I can base my results and recommendations on something real, rather than something, that some remote control micromanager has pulled out of thin air.
Sunday, March 06, 2005
Bleh
Lunch was terrible.
Chicken boiled in a tomato broth, and a floury tomato soup with rice and sour yoghurty milky chivey stuff served on a stainless steel prison tray.
Even the bread was stale.
I need nutrition. Fruit, fresh vegetables. Anything.
I think this is contributing to my down state, and no possibility of exercise unless you count dodging Turkish traffic in the rain, or wading through puddles and lakes created by the non-existent drainage system or pot-hole scaling.
Blah....
Chicken boiled in a tomato broth, and a floury tomato soup with rice and sour yoghurty milky chivey stuff served on a stainless steel prison tray.
Even the bread was stale.
I need nutrition. Fruit, fresh vegetables. Anything.
I think this is contributing to my down state, and no possibility of exercise unless you count dodging Turkish traffic in the rain, or wading through puddles and lakes created by the non-existent drainage system or pot-hole scaling.
Blah....
Feeling Somewhat Better
[Listening to: India (Seb Fontaine Mix) - Shagrat - Perfecto Presents: Seb Fontaine (Disc 1) (8:14)]
Well, I finally managed to get in touch with my beloved, after more frustrating attempts at dialling out of this country. I initially got some message that the phone was off, and after a few more attempts managed to get in touch with her mum, and finally to call her at her work.
I feel lethargic and somewhat depressed, so I probably didn't come across well on the phone, but I do feel better having spoken to Jodie, as brief as it was. She's turned her phone back on again, much to my releif, so I can keep in touch with her with what is apparently the most reliable form of communication in the world SMS.
We've even had internet outages here on site, and when we are connected, webmail is agonizingly slow. The blog seems to be OK, but mainly because I can queue topics up in wbloggar and keep trying until it manages to post it.
It's frightening how much we rely on these forms of communications now days. I really feel for the dating couples of my grandparent's age, waiting forever for an unreliable postal service.
Recently my grandparent's on my mother's side passed away, and while tidying up their affairs and their house I chanced upon a letter writted by my grandfather to my grandmother shortly after they met. It was full of nervousness and uncertainty as my grandfather was trying to come to terms with his feelings, and a recent arguement with his future wife before he had to head out to the country.
It must have been terrible to not hear from the object of you're hearts desires for weeks on end as the most advanced form of communication was going through the motions. Even something as simple as having a bunch of flowers delivered was next to impossible, unless you had a good friend in the right location.
Now it's as simple as ringing a florist and giving them a credit card number, and the love of your life will have roses sitting in front of them before they can blush. How men and women of past ages ever managed to weave a path through the potential minefields of mis-communication without the tools of today is a testament to their love. Perhaps the distractions and doodads of today get in the way of feelings and love.
While communication is easier than ever today, it seems we've lost the patience that our ancestors had. With so many swindlers, crooks and morally corrupt individuals in the society of today it's far more difficult to find someone to trust, and if you do, it's often difficult to recognize them or to bring your self to trust them because of past individual experiences.
Government propaganda (particularly that of the USA, Britain and Australia) promotes an atmosphere of suspicion and corruption, and encourages you to betray the trust of someone you know. In business it is practically expected that you can't be trusted, and you're so called "partner" will be looking out for number 1 and looking for ways to backstab you.
This is particularly prevalent in Asian cultures where business negotiations is akin to war. So much so that one of the predominant Asian business philosophy books studied widely even today is Sun Tzu's Art of War. A document dating back over a thousand years with wide ranging philophies about how to identify your enemy, find and exploit his weaknesses and betray their trust all the while elevating your status in the society, and among your peers.
Co-operation no longer exists. Today's society lives by the mantra of WIIFM, and feedsback to itself selfishness and betrayal.
Even within a company that are supposed to be working towards a common goal corporate politics and personal agenda's sabotage the overall mission.
The world is terminally ill, and doing it's damndest to infect the few remaining virtuous souls on this planet.
I know I've found one of them, and it's my mission to do what I can to protect it.
Saturday, March 05, 2005
Early Mornings and Late Nights
I'm feeling exhausted right at the moment. I'm pretty sure that it's to do with the 5AM starts that I've been having since I got here, and the amount of mental energy's I'm having to expend with these calculations. I'm not sure why, but mental stress seems to take more out of me than physical labour.
Sometimes I just need to get up from my seat and go for a walk around the plant. Check that the wobblers are still spinning, and that the pump is still pumping, and that the liquor is going where it's meant to.
Today is the 3rd day without rain since I arrived in Turkey, with the second being yesterday. Most of the rivers are still swolen, and the ground around site is still muddy, though it has dried up a lot in the last 24 hours. With overcast skies and a seemingly neverending drizzle, the mood around the office has been pretty drab. The climate coupled with the continuous power failures and general failing of anything local has taken some tempers to breaking point.
The two other aussies who are here at this plant both seriously need some time off. The younger of the two now has the opportunity to take some time off while I'm here to help the older, more experienced one with the final throes of construction on the plant and the plant commissioning. It's not a job that one person can do, particularly as out of this site, I'm the only one who's ever actually run a mixed hydroxide precipitation plant before.
The local engineers that we have got here are nice enough people, but they seem to have a problem with following instructions. When hard work is pushed their way they want to find someone else to give it to, usually a Turkish laborer with little to no experience in the minerals industry. This leaves the engineer with nothing to do except watch, and puts additional pressure on the laboring workforce.
Yesterday I had a discussion with one of the Turkish professionals from another department, and he was explaining how the engineers had been complaining that we wouldn't teach them anything. I had to bite my tongue and then calmly explain to him that it's difficult to trust them with complex tasks when they don't finish the simple tasks, such as keeping a single pump running, or calculating the volume of a heap of dirt, or completing their assigned testwork on time, or even the project brief.
I explained that they need to learn to walk before they can run.
We're trying to ensure that we give them tasks, and responsibilities for things, such as asking them to do a mixing procedure for the reagents. It's not a difficult task, but one that is essential. It would take us aussies about 20 minutes to write this, but so far none of these engineers has attempted the procedure in nearly 3 months. In a week they need to start the plant, and they need to have those reagents mixed.
The reason that we ask them to do tasks like this is to get them thinkikng about the practicalities of doing the job. What's involved. We don't necessarily expect them to get it correct, but they have to at least attempt it.
Another example is the acid mixing plant. Concentrated sulphuric acid is a very hazadous chemical, and for this reason we went to great lengths to get locks on the valves so that it wouldn't be accidentally released. The engineers were tasked with getting a set of keyed alike locks to keep them locked, and keep the site safe. Four months, and not so much as a quote, a phone call or an order has been place.
How, I ask you, can we trust people like this to do complex jobs where they are responsible for millions of dollars of equipment if they can't even arrange $100 worth of padlocks?
In the meantime, I'm back to spreadsheets again. This blog is actually forming the basis of my procrastination at the moment, and it's helping take my mind off the message that I received earlier from Jodie. I'm not sure if it's a threat or whether she's just seriously pissed off at me, but she said that she'll think about seeing me when I return.
I have to trust in the feeling that I think we have for each other, and that I certainly have for her, that they are strong enough to get through our latest communication breakdown. I don't really want to think of my life without her, particularly right now. She's been a tower of strength for me and someone who I can talk to and listen to, as a diversion from the stresses of working here. Maybe I don't show how much I appreciate her or something, I'm not sure, but I do know that I've come to rely on her strength to spur me on to greater things.
Just yesterday, she was the one that I relied on to listen to me, when I had to vocalize the frustrations I was experiencing dealing with our Mongolian associates. I'd had some troubles with some calculations, and was getting a lot of grief about it. I needed to have a whinge about it, and she was so understanding and supportive about the experience.
This trip has been particularly hard for a number of reasons, and it is forcing me to question whether I really want to continue on in this line of work. Continual stress, long hours, ungrateful customers, heavy responsibility and difficult working conditions are beginning to take their toll on me, and while the money is good, the inflexible work regime and lack of time off is difficult for me to take.
Each day I'm up at 5AM for a 7AM start. We rarely leave before 5PM and get back to the flat at around 6:30 in time to have some dinner an intense talk about what went wrong on that day and what we are planning for tomorrow before retiring to bed at around 8:30 to 9PM. Then the sleep is very restless due to the continual traffic noises, honking horns and raised voices on the street directly outside of our windows, before we rise to do it all again. Seven days a week.
I dunno, I don't really mind I suppose, but every now and then I just need to get it out of my system. This industry isn't the glamourous hi-tech industry that everyone assumes. It's dealing with dirt, people and large sums of money that are never large enough to do the job asked in a proper manner.
Blah... I'm doing lots of whinging, but I guess I'm just trying to say that I'm feeling exhausted and need some sleep.
Well it's 3:46 PM, so I'm going to try to get this little chunk of the spreadsheets done, and then I'm going to go home and try to get an early night.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Jodie will speak to me tomorrow. I really miss hearing her voice and feeling her in my arms.
Sometimes I just need to get up from my seat and go for a walk around the plant. Check that the wobblers are still spinning, and that the pump is still pumping, and that the liquor is going where it's meant to.
Today is the 3rd day without rain since I arrived in Turkey, with the second being yesterday. Most of the rivers are still swolen, and the ground around site is still muddy, though it has dried up a lot in the last 24 hours. With overcast skies and a seemingly neverending drizzle, the mood around the office has been pretty drab. The climate coupled with the continuous power failures and general failing of anything local has taken some tempers to breaking point.
The two other aussies who are here at this plant both seriously need some time off. The younger of the two now has the opportunity to take some time off while I'm here to help the older, more experienced one with the final throes of construction on the plant and the plant commissioning. It's not a job that one person can do, particularly as out of this site, I'm the only one who's ever actually run a mixed hydroxide precipitation plant before.
The local engineers that we have got here are nice enough people, but they seem to have a problem with following instructions. When hard work is pushed their way they want to find someone else to give it to, usually a Turkish laborer with little to no experience in the minerals industry. This leaves the engineer with nothing to do except watch, and puts additional pressure on the laboring workforce.
Yesterday I had a discussion with one of the Turkish professionals from another department, and he was explaining how the engineers had been complaining that we wouldn't teach them anything. I had to bite my tongue and then calmly explain to him that it's difficult to trust them with complex tasks when they don't finish the simple tasks, such as keeping a single pump running, or calculating the volume of a heap of dirt, or completing their assigned testwork on time, or even the project brief.
I explained that they need to learn to walk before they can run.
We're trying to ensure that we give them tasks, and responsibilities for things, such as asking them to do a mixing procedure for the reagents. It's not a difficult task, but one that is essential. It would take us aussies about 20 minutes to write this, but so far none of these engineers has attempted the procedure in nearly 3 months. In a week they need to start the plant, and they need to have those reagents mixed.
The reason that we ask them to do tasks like this is to get them thinkikng about the practicalities of doing the job. What's involved. We don't necessarily expect them to get it correct, but they have to at least attempt it.
Another example is the acid mixing plant. Concentrated sulphuric acid is a very hazadous chemical, and for this reason we went to great lengths to get locks on the valves so that it wouldn't be accidentally released. The engineers were tasked with getting a set of keyed alike locks to keep them locked, and keep the site safe. Four months, and not so much as a quote, a phone call or an order has been place.
How, I ask you, can we trust people like this to do complex jobs where they are responsible for millions of dollars of equipment if they can't even arrange $100 worth of padlocks?
In the meantime, I'm back to spreadsheets again. This blog is actually forming the basis of my procrastination at the moment, and it's helping take my mind off the message that I received earlier from Jodie. I'm not sure if it's a threat or whether she's just seriously pissed off at me, but she said that she'll think about seeing me when I return.
I have to trust in the feeling that I think we have for each other, and that I certainly have for her, that they are strong enough to get through our latest communication breakdown. I don't really want to think of my life without her, particularly right now. She's been a tower of strength for me and someone who I can talk to and listen to, as a diversion from the stresses of working here. Maybe I don't show how much I appreciate her or something, I'm not sure, but I do know that I've come to rely on her strength to spur me on to greater things.
Just yesterday, she was the one that I relied on to listen to me, when I had to vocalize the frustrations I was experiencing dealing with our Mongolian associates. I'd had some troubles with some calculations, and was getting a lot of grief about it. I needed to have a whinge about it, and she was so understanding and supportive about the experience.
This trip has been particularly hard for a number of reasons, and it is forcing me to question whether I really want to continue on in this line of work. Continual stress, long hours, ungrateful customers, heavy responsibility and difficult working conditions are beginning to take their toll on me, and while the money is good, the inflexible work regime and lack of time off is difficult for me to take.
Each day I'm up at 5AM for a 7AM start. We rarely leave before 5PM and get back to the flat at around 6:30 in time to have some dinner an intense talk about what went wrong on that day and what we are planning for tomorrow before retiring to bed at around 8:30 to 9PM. Then the sleep is very restless due to the continual traffic noises, honking horns and raised voices on the street directly outside of our windows, before we rise to do it all again. Seven days a week.
I dunno, I don't really mind I suppose, but every now and then I just need to get it out of my system. This industry isn't the glamourous hi-tech industry that everyone assumes. It's dealing with dirt, people and large sums of money that are never large enough to do the job asked in a proper manner.
Blah... I'm doing lots of whinging, but I guess I'm just trying to say that I'm feeling exhausted and need some sleep.
Well it's 3:46 PM, so I'm going to try to get this little chunk of the spreadsheets done, and then I'm going to go home and try to get an early night.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Jodie will speak to me tomorrow. I really miss hearing her voice and feeling her in my arms.
Turkish Infrastructure.
Aaaarrrghh!!!!!
After unsuccessfully having tried to call Jodie half a dozen times today using both a land line and my mobile I get a message from her that basically tells me that she thinks I didn't want to talk to her, and am making up excuses.
Nothing seems to work in this frigging country, and now it's impacting on my relationship.
Heck, I've been on site for 14 days now, and we have not had one full day of electricity yet. The backup generator has broken down at least 5 times in that same period, a bridge has washed away and today, now, I couldn't ring my girlfriend, my mother, my father, my sister or my housemate.
Heck, even my workmate is in a foul mood, because the cigarette lighter he bought this morning refuses to produce a flame, thus depriving him of nicotine and making him even more short tempered than he already is.
This country sucks.
I tried again, just a few minutes ago, and got her message bank, which is s step in the right direction, but still I have been unable to talk to her.
I get a little lost at times with Jodie. One day we have such a great day with conversation, and we are both happy, and then wham - like a bombshell, I'm suddenly the baddie because I can't get in touch with her.
Despite a string of messages today, (one of which was her telling me that she was turning her phone off for the weekend "because 'her' attachment to it is over the top".) Was I wrong in assuming that when she sent me this, that she was "actually" going to turn her phone off?
Trying to be diplomatic, and in tune with her feelings, I sent a message expressing regret that I wouldn't get to talk to her, but I tried to put it in a way that supported the decision she'd made. The difficult thing about SMS's is that there is no vocal intonation, so it's difficult to know whether the SMS is said in jest, with anger, with longing, or as a wistful aside. I'm not sure of the tone of the above mentioned message to me, so I tried to hedge my bets, but I missed big time, it seems. I seem to have provoked some sort of anger, because I apparently wasn't going to miss her enough.
I didn't hear back from her after I sent my message for several hours, and thought (wrongfully it seems) that she had, in fact, actually switched her phone off. Assuming that the phone was off, I didn't send any more messages, though I've had the phone on my desk next to me in the faint hope that she didn't actually turn it off and would message me, so that then I could make another attempt at ringing her.
Why not ring her at home? I hear you ask, well, she's currently bunked down in a transportable flat on her parents property that doesn't have a phone line, and her parent's are away, so if I did manage to get a line out then there was likely no-one on the other end to answer it, so it is mobile or nothing (though I'm probably mistaken in this assumption too.)
I hate this long distance thing. It's why I've been so keen for Jodie to move to Perth, so that we can be near each other, and actually surprise each other by visiting face to face rather than attempting the same through the screwed up infrastructure networks that make up this strange place.
Today has become so frustrating.
After unsuccessfully having tried to call Jodie half a dozen times today using both a land line and my mobile I get a message from her that basically tells me that she thinks I didn't want to talk to her, and am making up excuses.
Nothing seems to work in this frigging country, and now it's impacting on my relationship.
Heck, I've been on site for 14 days now, and we have not had one full day of electricity yet. The backup generator has broken down at least 5 times in that same period, a bridge has washed away and today, now, I couldn't ring my girlfriend, my mother, my father, my sister or my housemate.
Heck, even my workmate is in a foul mood, because the cigarette lighter he bought this morning refuses to produce a flame, thus depriving him of nicotine and making him even more short tempered than he already is.
This country sucks.
I tried again, just a few minutes ago, and got her message bank, which is s step in the right direction, but still I have been unable to talk to her.
I get a little lost at times with Jodie. One day we have such a great day with conversation, and we are both happy, and then wham - like a bombshell, I'm suddenly the baddie because I can't get in touch with her.
Despite a string of messages today, (one of which was her telling me that she was turning her phone off for the weekend "because 'her' attachment to it is over the top".) Was I wrong in assuming that when she sent me this, that she was "actually" going to turn her phone off?
Trying to be diplomatic, and in tune with her feelings, I sent a message expressing regret that I wouldn't get to talk to her, but I tried to put it in a way that supported the decision she'd made. The difficult thing about SMS's is that there is no vocal intonation, so it's difficult to know whether the SMS is said in jest, with anger, with longing, or as a wistful aside. I'm not sure of the tone of the above mentioned message to me, so I tried to hedge my bets, but I missed big time, it seems. I seem to have provoked some sort of anger, because I apparently wasn't going to miss her enough.
I didn't hear back from her after I sent my message for several hours, and thought (wrongfully it seems) that she had, in fact, actually switched her phone off. Assuming that the phone was off, I didn't send any more messages, though I've had the phone on my desk next to me in the faint hope that she didn't actually turn it off and would message me, so that then I could make another attempt at ringing her.
Why not ring her at home? I hear you ask, well, she's currently bunked down in a transportable flat on her parents property that doesn't have a phone line, and her parent's are away, so if I did manage to get a line out then there was likely no-one on the other end to answer it, so it is mobile or nothing (though I'm probably mistaken in this assumption too.)
I hate this long distance thing. It's why I've been so keen for Jodie to move to Perth, so that we can be near each other, and actually surprise each other by visiting face to face rather than attempting the same through the screwed up infrastructure networks that make up this strange place.
Today has become so frustrating.
Wednesday, March 02, 2005
The Array - Chapter 5 - Digging
[Listening to: Overture - Chicane - Behind The Sun (3:46)]
Jensen wandered out from the front door and across the parking lot devoted to the task at hand. Striding confidently beneath the clouded dark night sky he swung the keys on his right index finger, distracted as he was, by his errand. Tucked beneath is left arm was a photocopy of a small portion of the luminous drawing, the secrets which he had just glimpsed intruding on his psyche.
Catching his bunch of keys in the palm of his hand he deftly flipped the key in his hand and pressed the button unlocking the doors to his black Honda Prelude. Opening the door, he eased into the embrace of the sheepskin seat covers and coaxed the engine into action. After swiping his security card over the panel that allowed the gate to the car park to open, Jensen let the tension that had been building in him find an outlet through the conduit of his right foot and the power of the tubocharged engine.
He followed the route that was almost automatic to him as the cable traced the first 2 or 3 kilometers of his route home. At the end of Francis Street where he would normally turn right, Jensen instead followed the quick left-right chicane that traced around the border of the scenic park where he walked with his dog, and occasionally his wife, Jenny, before he left for work each shift.
At this time of night the traffic was fairly light, but even so, he was forced to halve his speed quite suddenly, as the traffic merged into a single lane, to avoid reshaping the front end of his automobile and that of the small 2 door Ford, illuminating his Prelude with it's brake lights.
Up ahead the yellow flashing lights of roadworks splashed their discordant rhythm of light off the occasionally tinted windows of the oncoming traffic. At his stunted speed, Jensen glanced across to the crowd of onlookers inspecting the open excavation into which the backhoe had it's arm extended into innards of the earth. The crowd was unusual in it's size, particularly for this late hour of the night.
Allowing the veil of fluorescent lettering to lift briefly, Jensen recalled the purpose of his mission, and suddenly jamming the brake to the floor, immediately raising a din of horns from his rear, he grabbed the map from the passenger seat and noted the cable running down the road border of his drawing. The drawing only showed the two lanes of an older relation to this road, prior to it's strongly disputed encroachment into the park, though the left hand border of the road had moved little.
Pulling up onto the footpath on his right, Jensen leapt out of his car bringing another chargrined din of car horns, as the he momentarily forgot his chances of a one on one with a car. Pulling up inches from the passing car he earned himself a vicious knock on his left hip from the wing mirror of the passing car and a muffled string of expletives from the driver. Awaiting a break in the traffic, he quickly crossed the road and joined the engrossed crowd, pressing to the front of the pack and peered into the maw of earth in front of him.
From his vantage point he couldn't actually see the cause of the crowds interest, but his mind could almost see the broken cable that had been unearthed by the backhoe. Forcibly he shuffled around the barrier tape along the front of the crowd until he could see the scorched cable welded to the side of the bucket. The driver and a couple of the laborers were down the trench with a shovel attempting to prise the cable away from the bucket, in order to free the machine, but it was appearing like a lost cause.
Glancing across the trench, Jensen noted a chubby, unkempt man in a day-glo orange vest barking orders to the men down the hole. Pushing his way past the crowd Jensen jogged around the torpid machine and approached the bright orange barker.
"Whoa, whoa, what are you guys doing here?" yelled Jensen, to distract the foreman.
"Who the fuck are you?" was the short and pointed response
"I'm the guy that 20 minutes ago was sitting at the control panel at the other end of this cable, when you took it upon yourself to ruin my shift" retorted Jensen, violently pointing to the spectacle below.
"Really. Well that saves me a few hours of phone calls to find out who I can send the bill to?" came the reply as the near canine temper rising close to boiling point, and the barking foreman invaded Jensen's personal space, his foul breath stinging Jensen's nostrils
Thrown off guard, and instinctively stepping backwards, Jensen feebly replied "Bill?"
"Yeah" continued the foreman. "Someone's gotta pay for the damage to my machine."
"Damage to your machine" snapped Jensen, "What about the damage to our infrastructure? When are you guys going to learn to read cable maps" continued Jensen, waving his photocopied map in the foreman's face.
"Well, if you suits bothered to put your cables on the maps, then I'd stop digging them up" said the foremand defensively.
"What do you mean?" responded Jensen more calmly. "It's on my map right here" he continued, opening the folded photostat.
Glancing at the map "That's no Energy commision cable map" countered the foreman. "Look" he said, motioning for Jensen to follow towards the battered utility parked on the footpath.
Opening the tattered map Jensen could clearly see the distinct absence of his cable, the "official" map showing only a water main next to the buildings lining the footpath and the stormater drain under the edge of the second lane of the road, with the remaining utilities being located in the more convenient location of the park.
"Shit..." came Jensen's puzzled response. Quickly thinking, he instructed "Get your boys out of the hole. I'll get a team down here to sort this out" while simultaneously dialling Charles' number.
