Redeployment Meetings

We held our last Redeployment Meeting yesterday.
The Redeployment Meetings are always a highlight
of our season in Air Services and a sign that the
end is near for the summer season. This year,
Leighton, who is in charge of the Christchurch
travel office came down to present the gory
details of the travel options to all of the RPSC
and NANA folks. Susie presented other Air
Services info at five of the meetings and I
made our presentation at three of the meetings,
including the two held for night shift employees.
Now, the not so fun part comes along...entering
all of the data from everyone's Redeployment
Form into the database, including travel options,
hotel choices, dates etc. I'll be wearing out
my eyeballs, staring at a computer screen for the
next several weeks, doing my part to enter over
500 person's forms. It will be good when this
part of my job is done for the season.

Irony...

Here's the timeline...
Last week, I post a blog entry entitled:


"Just Smurfy!"




This morning at 0730, my boss holds a monthly
All RPSC/NANA Safety Meeting in the Galley, and
the topic is: "Death and Destruction in Antarctica",
focusing specifically on the fires many years ago
that destroyed the Chapel and the old Vehicle
Maintenance Facility. Some great video footage
of historic fire tragedies that took place before
most of us had even heard of McMurdo. The focus
of the meeting was to keep people aware that
disasters can happen here and that we should
always be prepared for them.


This morning at approximately 1023, I'm sitting
at my desk working on a report when I hear over
the scanner that "THE SMURF SHACK IS ON FIRE".
I think two or three of us in the office simultan-
eously said "Oh Crap!" and moments later I was
racing down to Building 165 to perform my duties
at the EOC (Emergency Operations Center). The
reasons are still unknown what caused the fire as
the closest people to the Shack were miles away,
in town at the time it is thought to have begun.
Almost 500 gallons of fuel used to heat the shack
were lost and the flames were easily seen from
town, over a dozen miles away. We've asked Don
if we can have our next Safety Meeting cover the
possibilities of having everyone on station win the
Lotto since he seems to have some kind of precogniscent
ability to forcast upcoming events!

A Pain in the Back

There seems to be a big push down here lately
about ergonomics and most importantly, back safety.
All the RPSC and NANA folks had to participate in
a "Safety Stand Down" this morning at 0730. Ugh
way too early to listen to corporate stuff regarding
our welfare. Especially on a Monday after a two
day weekend. I think my ergonomics would have been
a lot better if I could have spent that additional
hour in bed!

Stupid Things I Have Done

We had our monthly All-RPSC/NANA Safety Meeting today
and my boss likes to keep it pretty informal since it's
held at 7:30 in the morning and he doesn't want people
to fall asleep. As a result, he walks around the galley
with a microphone and asks people to give anecdotes on
the particular topic. This month, it was "Stupid Things
I Have Done...And Lived To Tell About It". Lots of good
gnarly stories about people losing fingers, coming close
to losing limbs, etc. I volunteered to tell my story
about how on the way to a Safety Meeting in 2002, I fell
and tore my quadraceps tendon resulting in two months of
crutching it around, followed by three months in a ankle
to hip cast. But the story I really wanted to tell that
I always enjoy telling to gross people out (I was
successful this time as well) is the story about my
co-worker and friend, Joe, who I worked with at the Marriott
in Detroit. Joe used to work at a company called Thornapple
Valley. For those of you not from the Midwest U.S., this
is a company that makes sausages, luncheon meats, etc.
When making meat products, there are a lot of leftovers.
Parts of an animal that would make most people turn into
vegetarians if they were to see it processed. All of this
is "useful" and sold to companies that make soap and
makeup. Yes, the stuff women put on their faces. To
store all of these "leftovers", they're kept in a semi-
liquid form in big vats. Almost like swimming pools of
leftover parts. Well...Joe was walking on a catwalk over
one of these vats, slipped and fell in...over his head.
His co-worker had to grab him by the hair and pull him out.
Otherwise he would have drowned...in liquified animal parts.
Ugh...I love this story. Even though I think Joe might be
full of crap and was making it up, it could be true for all
I know. The best part of this story...he told it to us
while we were eating lunch. Ah Joe...classy guy.