I haven't given up on this blog, I've just not taken the time to sit down and write. I've got about half a dozen posts sitting in my head, I just haven't digitised them yet. I was awakened to this fact by a certain cyber-stalker of mine so now I feel guilty enough to start typing, cheers Loz ;P
I'm flying back to the UK in 5 days for a 2week holiday including DOWNLOAD!!! Can't wait! I'll be going home to see my Mum and my WSM friends for two days before heading to Fal for two days before heading to Download and then back to Fal for the remainder of my time at home.
Work is better now as I've started to move around the departments so I've spent a week with the surveyors which included a day on the beach at Wollongong and I'll be moving on to gas drainage and geology when I get back at the end of June.
I've also got a bunch of new housemates, a couple living opposite me, a new girl replacing a now-ex-boyfriend at the back of the house and a soon-to-be-found tenant for the apartment below me. Unfortunately the couple living there who have become my good friends have been evicted for some rather spurious noise complaints. They're leaving tomorrow and so I should have one or two new housemates by the time I get back from the UK.
I've been partying pretty hard with both my housemates and some guys I met through them so my Facebook and Myspace are chocka with new pics... check them out.
31 May 2009
I'm still alive
But barely breathing. Have had the flu and I'm still coughing 3wks later :(
All right, here’s some technical stuff for you. I’ve decided to do a fairly long post covering the technical side of the mine I’m at. I know that most of the people reading this have no interest in mining whatsoever but it should give you a better idea of the conditions I’m working in and hopefully more of what I say will make sense. I’m hoping to get the OK to take the mine’s digital camera underground with me to get some pics so you’ll have a frame of reference. There are some funny bits in here too so don’t write it off too soon (funny being entirely subject to my twisted sense of humour). Technical terms will be kept to a minimum, if you don’t understand one, Google it, you lazy fuck.
All right, first off, the mine that I’m working at shall now be known as TC. It’s a longwall mine about an hour south of Sydney that produces hard coking coal with damn-near-perfect chemical composition putting it in the top 2% of all hard coking coal for desirability. It has its own rail loading facilities and its own washery (for washing the stone and crap out of the coal) which again boosts the mines viability by a large factor. TC is about 2km from the nearest town and approx 9.3km from my front door. This means that the new longwall blocks run under the town of T, the freeway running south from Sydney and the main train line from Sydney to Melbourne. Luckily we’ve only caused enough damage to demolish 3 houses and substantially rebuild another 3 so far… oops. The trains are also speed-limited above the mining area which is costing the mine about $30,000 a week in charges from the various freight/passenger services! There is also a large river only a few km down the road and to cap it off a fault (big crack in the earth) called the Nepean Fault as well as several smaller ones run through the mining area. Faults in coal mining terms mean lots of water, lots of methane/CO gas and potentially a lot of deaths if someone fucks up and mines into one.
TC has had a fair few owners over the last 15yrs or so, mainly because it’s an expensive mine to run and the Union have their claws in deep. Finally it’s been bought by “X” who are the first multi-national company with a lot of experience to own the mine. Unfortunately this has caused a fair bit of angst among the workforce simply because X isn’t stupid enough to bankrupt itself pandering to all the petty demands of the Union unlike several of the previous owners. The constant change of upper management hasn’t helped this either as a decent working relationship between the “feds” and the “staff” can take years to develop. For those not familiar with the lingo (like me 4 weeks ago) the “feds” are the workers and the “staff” is all of the office workers, engineers and management types that stay on the surface. There is an awful lot of resentment between the two groups because the feds are convinced that the staff just wants to make their lives a misery with endless paperwork, not enough overtime and poor decisions while the staff is convinced that the feds are lazy, stupid and can’t be trusted to do the job properly. Unfortunately they are both right to a certain degree so I’ll leave that sleeping dog right there…
Access underground is by a “dolly car” on train tracks which is raised and lowered on the 2km drift by a winder. The secondary means of egress (escape) is the drift belt, which means lying everyone down on the belt and starting it up, hopefully stopping it before anyone gets launched onto the stockpile. There are two shafts, no.2 and no.3 which are primarily ventilation but no.3 is soon to have a 20 man cage fitted for escape if there is a fire in the drift. I got lucky and got to help out with an exercise where we had to load an injured guy on a stretcher into the existing cage in no.2 shaft. Now I know that I’m only a student but having done a fair amount of hoisting techniques and the minimum standards for man riding cages etc I was shocked. For nearly twenty years the workforce at TC has been relying on no.2 shaft in the event of a fire at pit bottom or in the drift. I can confidently say that they would have had casualties, if not a large number of deaths. The shaft has but a single cage, capable of carrying 5 people OR a stretcher and 1 person. The journey to surface takes 6 minutes and the round-trip is nearly 15 with loading times. It would take over 7hrs to evacuate all workers at that rate! The fact that this system was implemented before it was compulsory to have compressed air breathing units underground makes it even more shocking. Until 12 months ago the trapped workers would have had to survive on whatever fresh air reached down the shaft… completely inadequate to keep 300 blokes alive I can tell you. Now however, thanks to new legislation all coal mines have to have CABA units (air tanks with masks) in each panel, near the working face with refill stations and spares every 1500m. There is also a large “fresh air base” near the shaft which has enough spare units and refill stations to keep everyone underground alive until they can get out. I won’t even start on the lack of guides for the cage and the likelihood of rope entanglement etc etc….
The underground conditions are pretty varied depending on which area of the mine you go to, the older workings are pretty much dry but prone to roof falls and have high gas levels due to all the goaf (mined out) areas which bleed gas through poorly sealed tunnels. The current workings are slightly sloped due to them following the 2m seam as it rises and falls. This means that at one end of the longwall there is a development panel which is very dry and has few gas problems meaning good advance rates and a lot of coal cut. The end I’m working at however is at one of the lowest points in the mine and we constantly have water and gas problems. We wade through about 200m of mud to get to the face and that’s with a dozen pumps running 24/7, you can see water bubbling out of the floor and it can rise several feet in a few hours. This end of the mine is very close to a large fault which wasn’t detected in the original survey so a couple of years ago they were mining right towards it until the roof started falling in on a daily basis and they left a continuous miner overnight to find it underwater in the morning. That means that they have had to abandon a large section of tunnels and cut them all over again to re-route the conveyors and service pipes (water, air etc) at a huge cost and time delay. As of this week there are now 3 panels working in different areas, plus the longwall. This is stretching them right to the limit as there are 5 continuous miners in operation, each needing a whole raft of support such as shuttle-cars, LHD’s, conveyors, boot ends, ventilation etc. plus the manpower to operate them. The two longwall development panels are operated as “super panels” with two CM’s each driving one heading plus cut-through's. The third panel which is replacing the failed panel mentioned above has just one CM but has 4 headings plus cut-through’s to drive. They have the added pressure of knowing that if they are excessively delayed that the old panel might have a major roof fall and so halt all longwall and half the development production until they can finish.
That brings me nicely on to the state of the machinery at the mine. It has been in operation for over twenty years and has replaced its machinery several times. However the current batch ranges from 3-12yrs old and is plagued with problems. Thanks to the constant need to be cutting coal and making money, over the year’s maintenance schedules have slipped and once this happens they never recover. This means that machines which really need to be dragged up to surface and completely overhauled are simply kept in service with a series of minor repairs. This is incredibly wasteful and my panel alone spent nearly an entire week sitting on our arses because our CM was out of action thanks to mechanical problems. The more downtime we have, the more targets slip behind and so when we resume production we have to try and make up the lost time which means the machines are pushed too hard and break down again. This cycle is perpetual and the only way it will change is if, God forbid, the mine is forced into care and maintenance and all the machines are pulled out and replaced or fully serviced. A prime example is the state of the transport fleet; there are supposedly 16 underground transports available yet in reality this is never more than 10 due to repairs etc. All it takes is for one or two to breakdown underground and suddenly no one can move around as all the available transport is being used. This happens at least once a week, only a few days ago a group of us including our panel deputy (like a shift boss) were stuck at pit bottom because there weren’t enough serviceable vehicles to get us into the panel. There is a single grader to keep the roads in a fit state; this was recently away for 5wks for a full service and in that time we were losing a vehicle nearly every day due to damage from bad roads…
Ok, confession time, the above 1500 words were written a month ago! I’ve been incredibly slack about typing this stuff up but luckily there’s not much more to say… We’ve now got a 6th miner and shuttle car on surface waiting for the current maingate/tailgate development to finish so it can go into mains development in 900 panel. We seem to have escaped the worst of the economic downturn, the last month has been full of rumours about the pit being shut and mass lay-offs etc but we’ve had a few more small orders to keep the place ticking over. More later…
All right, here’s some technical stuff for you. I’ve decided to do a fairly long post covering the technical side of the mine I’m at. I know that most of the people reading this have no interest in mining whatsoever but it should give you a better idea of the conditions I’m working in and hopefully more of what I say will make sense. I’m hoping to get the OK to take the mine’s digital camera underground with me to get some pics so you’ll have a frame of reference. There are some funny bits in here too so don’t write it off too soon (funny being entirely subject to my twisted sense of humour). Technical terms will be kept to a minimum, if you don’t understand one, Google it, you lazy fuck.
All right, first off, the mine that I’m working at shall now be known as TC. It’s a longwall mine about an hour south of Sydney that produces hard coking coal with damn-near-perfect chemical composition putting it in the top 2% of all hard coking coal for desirability. It has its own rail loading facilities and its own washery (for washing the stone and crap out of the coal) which again boosts the mines viability by a large factor. TC is about 2km from the nearest town and approx 9.3km from my front door. This means that the new longwall blocks run under the town of T, the freeway running south from Sydney and the main train line from Sydney to Melbourne. Luckily we’ve only caused enough damage to demolish 3 houses and substantially rebuild another 3 so far… oops. The trains are also speed-limited above the mining area which is costing the mine about $30,000 a week in charges from the various freight/passenger services! There is also a large river only a few km down the road and to cap it off a fault (big crack in the earth) called the Nepean Fault as well as several smaller ones run through the mining area. Faults in coal mining terms mean lots of water, lots of methane/CO gas and potentially a lot of deaths if someone fucks up and mines into one.
TC has had a fair few owners over the last 15yrs or so, mainly because it’s an expensive mine to run and the Union have their claws in deep. Finally it’s been bought by “X” who are the first multi-national company with a lot of experience to own the mine. Unfortunately this has caused a fair bit of angst among the workforce simply because X isn’t stupid enough to bankrupt itself pandering to all the petty demands of the Union unlike several of the previous owners. The constant change of upper management hasn’t helped this either as a decent working relationship between the “feds” and the “staff” can take years to develop. For those not familiar with the lingo (like me 4 weeks ago) the “feds” are the workers and the “staff” is all of the office workers, engineers and management types that stay on the surface. There is an awful lot of resentment between the two groups because the feds are convinced that the staff just wants to make their lives a misery with endless paperwork, not enough overtime and poor decisions while the staff is convinced that the feds are lazy, stupid and can’t be trusted to do the job properly. Unfortunately they are both right to a certain degree so I’ll leave that sleeping dog right there…
Access underground is by a “dolly car” on train tracks which is raised and lowered on the 2km drift by a winder. The secondary means of egress (escape) is the drift belt, which means lying everyone down on the belt and starting it up, hopefully stopping it before anyone gets launched onto the stockpile. There are two shafts, no.2 and no.3 which are primarily ventilation but no.3 is soon to have a 20 man cage fitted for escape if there is a fire in the drift. I got lucky and got to help out with an exercise where we had to load an injured guy on a stretcher into the existing cage in no.2 shaft. Now I know that I’m only a student but having done a fair amount of hoisting techniques and the minimum standards for man riding cages etc I was shocked. For nearly twenty years the workforce at TC has been relying on no.2 shaft in the event of a fire at pit bottom or in the drift. I can confidently say that they would have had casualties, if not a large number of deaths. The shaft has but a single cage, capable of carrying 5 people OR a stretcher and 1 person. The journey to surface takes 6 minutes and the round-trip is nearly 15 with loading times. It would take over 7hrs to evacuate all workers at that rate! The fact that this system was implemented before it was compulsory to have compressed air breathing units underground makes it even more shocking. Until 12 months ago the trapped workers would have had to survive on whatever fresh air reached down the shaft… completely inadequate to keep 300 blokes alive I can tell you. Now however, thanks to new legislation all coal mines have to have CABA units (air tanks with masks) in each panel, near the working face with refill stations and spares every 1500m. There is also a large “fresh air base” near the shaft which has enough spare units and refill stations to keep everyone underground alive until they can get out. I won’t even start on the lack of guides for the cage and the likelihood of rope entanglement etc etc….
The underground conditions are pretty varied depending on which area of the mine you go to, the older workings are pretty much dry but prone to roof falls and have high gas levels due to all the goaf (mined out) areas which bleed gas through poorly sealed tunnels. The current workings are slightly sloped due to them following the 2m seam as it rises and falls. This means that at one end of the longwall there is a development panel which is very dry and has few gas problems meaning good advance rates and a lot of coal cut. The end I’m working at however is at one of the lowest points in the mine and we constantly have water and gas problems. We wade through about 200m of mud to get to the face and that’s with a dozen pumps running 24/7, you can see water bubbling out of the floor and it can rise several feet in a few hours. This end of the mine is very close to a large fault which wasn’t detected in the original survey so a couple of years ago they were mining right towards it until the roof started falling in on a daily basis and they left a continuous miner overnight to find it underwater in the morning. That means that they have had to abandon a large section of tunnels and cut them all over again to re-route the conveyors and service pipes (water, air etc) at a huge cost and time delay. As of this week there are now 3 panels working in different areas, plus the longwall. This is stretching them right to the limit as there are 5 continuous miners in operation, each needing a whole raft of support such as shuttle-cars, LHD’s, conveyors, boot ends, ventilation etc. plus the manpower to operate them. The two longwall development panels are operated as “super panels” with two CM’s each driving one heading plus cut-through's. The third panel which is replacing the failed panel mentioned above has just one CM but has 4 headings plus cut-through’s to drive. They have the added pressure of knowing that if they are excessively delayed that the old panel might have a major roof fall and so halt all longwall and half the development production until they can finish.
That brings me nicely on to the state of the machinery at the mine. It has been in operation for over twenty years and has replaced its machinery several times. However the current batch ranges from 3-12yrs old and is plagued with problems. Thanks to the constant need to be cutting coal and making money, over the year’s maintenance schedules have slipped and once this happens they never recover. This means that machines which really need to be dragged up to surface and completely overhauled are simply kept in service with a series of minor repairs. This is incredibly wasteful and my panel alone spent nearly an entire week sitting on our arses because our CM was out of action thanks to mechanical problems. The more downtime we have, the more targets slip behind and so when we resume production we have to try and make up the lost time which means the machines are pushed too hard and break down again. This cycle is perpetual and the only way it will change is if, God forbid, the mine is forced into care and maintenance and all the machines are pulled out and replaced or fully serviced. A prime example is the state of the transport fleet; there are supposedly 16 underground transports available yet in reality this is never more than 10 due to repairs etc. All it takes is for one or two to breakdown underground and suddenly no one can move around as all the available transport is being used. This happens at least once a week, only a few days ago a group of us including our panel deputy (like a shift boss) were stuck at pit bottom because there weren’t enough serviceable vehicles to get us into the panel. There is a single grader to keep the roads in a fit state; this was recently away for 5wks for a full service and in that time we were losing a vehicle nearly every day due to damage from bad roads…
Ok, confession time, the above 1500 words were written a month ago! I’ve been incredibly slack about typing this stuff up but luckily there’s not much more to say… We’ve now got a 6th miner and shuttle car on surface waiting for the current maingate/tailgate development to finish so it can go into mains development in 900 panel. We seem to have escaped the worst of the economic downturn, the last month has been full of rumours about the pit being shut and mass lay-offs etc but we’ve had a few more small orders to keep the place ticking over. More later…
25 April 2009
17 April 2009
Updating the update
The post below was written nearly a week ago and a fair bit has changed since. The biggest thing is that it's looking increasingly likely that the mine I'm at is going to close. They're almost certainly going to lay off the contractors in the next two weeks and maybe as many as 100 of the full time workers. I'm pretty safe but it's going to be bad times for the next month or more.
On the other hand I have a working fridge now and my internet card is on it's way...
That's all I have...enjoy.
On the other hand I have a working fridge now and my internet card is on it's way...
That's all I have...enjoy.
Long time, no write bollocks
Yeh I know this is well overdue but thanks to the incompetency of my employers I still don’t have internet access except for when I can get to the local library, apparently Picton hasn’t heard of internet cafes yet. I should have received an internet card/dongle a month ago which would let me receive my company emails and access the net. The wonderful department that deals with them though decided to email me about it… they couldn’t understand why I didn’t receive them when I had no internet access. After a few long-winded phone calls I got put through to possibly the most irritating woman on the planet who promised me she’d call me when the card was sent. After two weeks of no contact I called her to find that yes, they’d been fucking emailing me again!!! How fucking hard is it to understand the concept that I have no email access??? I was promised that it would be sent last Monday yet come Thursday it still hadn’t arrived so now I have a 5 day Easter break and nothing to do but write this bollocks.
On the positive front I finally had a delivery on Thursday of a fridge/microwave/iron/toaster etc but Sod’s Law struck again and not only did my housemate who received the delivery not get a receipt for the delivery cost (leaving me $70 out of pocket) but the fridge doesn’t work. I left it 24hrs before I turned it on but it won’t go cold. I’ve tried everything suggested in the manual but no results yet. Of course being the bright spark I am I had the delivery before the long weekend so nowhere is open until Tuesday morning, leaving me with a big useless lump of metal and plastic clogging up a corner of my apartment. So, on Tuesday I also get to call my estate agents about the fact that only 1 out of 4 coils works on my electric hob, the toilet is cracked right down the bowl and they still haven’t fixed the broken fly screens.
There is, however, a light at the end of the long, long tunnel. I only have a 2 day week next week, oh joy of joys. The company has a “picnic day” on Tuesday (Easter Monday I’m off, of course) so that leaves me with just Wednesday and Thursday to work before my weekend starts on Friday. Then we’re having a big house party on Saturday with a whole load of people coming including a bunch of girls so at least I’ll have something to perve on if nothing else.
It’s all looking good for Download too, my sis has bought my ticket for me and BA have just announced that until November all returns from Sydney to London will be $1500, a good $300 cheaper! Once I get my access to expenses forms etc I should have the dosh in a mere 4 weeks. Then 4 weeks until I fly back to watch one of the greatest line-ups of all times. Faith No More, Slipknot, MM, KSE, Devildriver, The Prodigy, Silverchair, Limp Bizkit, Papa Roach and loads more, I can’t wait! After that I only have to survive about 6 weeks before I fly home for good. I may well come home a few days early for DL and pop down to Falmouth for a day or two around the 7-9th June.
Apart from that most things are going pretty well atm, my housemates are cool and we’ve had a fair few informal gatherings with mates of theirs and plenty of booze. At least I’m interacting with humans again! Work has been pretty cool too, I’m still working in a development panel with one of the crews. I’m basically just one of the crew so I can learn how it all works and see what problems they have and how to try and solve them. My panel is one of a pair, working towards each other from either end of a longwall block to eventually provide the maingate and tailgate of a longwall. The longwall blocks we’re currently cutting are nearly 4km long so there is a fair way to go. The work is hot, messy and bloody hard but I love it. I don’t have any tickets yet but there is a fair chance I’ll get my bolting ticket and maybe even my shuttlecar or transport ticket in the next couple of weeks. I may have to check with my boss back in Newcastle just because all of the equipment I’d be using is our major competitors and I don’t want to piss him off. I’m 90% sure he doesn’t give a shit but I’d rather check first. I won’t tell him that I’ve already spent several shifts stripping and repairing the apron/bolting rig on one of the miners. I’ll try not to mention that the workforce don’t seem to be too happy about getting our machines at the end of the year either…
That’s about it for now, I think. Leave me comments peeps and as soon as I have full-time net access you’ll be the first to know!
On the positive front I finally had a delivery on Thursday of a fridge/microwave/iron/toaster etc but Sod’s Law struck again and not only did my housemate who received the delivery not get a receipt for the delivery cost (leaving me $70 out of pocket) but the fridge doesn’t work. I left it 24hrs before I turned it on but it won’t go cold. I’ve tried everything suggested in the manual but no results yet. Of course being the bright spark I am I had the delivery before the long weekend so nowhere is open until Tuesday morning, leaving me with a big useless lump of metal and plastic clogging up a corner of my apartment. So, on Tuesday I also get to call my estate agents about the fact that only 1 out of 4 coils works on my electric hob, the toilet is cracked right down the bowl and they still haven’t fixed the broken fly screens.
There is, however, a light at the end of the long, long tunnel. I only have a 2 day week next week, oh joy of joys. The company has a “picnic day” on Tuesday (Easter Monday I’m off, of course) so that leaves me with just Wednesday and Thursday to work before my weekend starts on Friday. Then we’re having a big house party on Saturday with a whole load of people coming including a bunch of girls so at least I’ll have something to perve on if nothing else.
It’s all looking good for Download too, my sis has bought my ticket for me and BA have just announced that until November all returns from Sydney to London will be $1500, a good $300 cheaper! Once I get my access to expenses forms etc I should have the dosh in a mere 4 weeks. Then 4 weeks until I fly back to watch one of the greatest line-ups of all times. Faith No More, Slipknot, MM, KSE, Devildriver, The Prodigy, Silverchair, Limp Bizkit, Papa Roach and loads more, I can’t wait! After that I only have to survive about 6 weeks before I fly home for good. I may well come home a few days early for DL and pop down to Falmouth for a day or two around the 7-9th June.
Apart from that most things are going pretty well atm, my housemates are cool and we’ve had a fair few informal gatherings with mates of theirs and plenty of booze. At least I’m interacting with humans again! Work has been pretty cool too, I’m still working in a development panel with one of the crews. I’m basically just one of the crew so I can learn how it all works and see what problems they have and how to try and solve them. My panel is one of a pair, working towards each other from either end of a longwall block to eventually provide the maingate and tailgate of a longwall. The longwall blocks we’re currently cutting are nearly 4km long so there is a fair way to go. The work is hot, messy and bloody hard but I love it. I don’t have any tickets yet but there is a fair chance I’ll get my bolting ticket and maybe even my shuttlecar or transport ticket in the next couple of weeks. I may have to check with my boss back in Newcastle just because all of the equipment I’d be using is our major competitors and I don’t want to piss him off. I’m 90% sure he doesn’t give a shit but I’d rather check first. I won’t tell him that I’ve already spent several shifts stripping and repairing the apron/bolting rig on one of the miners. I’ll try not to mention that the workforce don’t seem to be too happy about getting our machines at the end of the year either…
That’s about it for now, I think. Leave me comments peeps and as soon as I have full-time net access you’ll be the first to know!
27 March 2009
It's all go...
Well the last 2 weeks have been crazily busy and I couldn't be in more of a different position than I was a month ago.
The house has turned out pretty good, I now have a sofa, a dining table with three chairs and a bed with the best damn mattress ever. All the rest shoulkd be arriving sometime within the next week with a bit of luck. This means I still have no fridge or washing machine but luckily the couple that live below me have been legends. In fact we've become pretty good mates over the last 2 weeks and I've spent a few nights sitting outside with them drinking and smoking. They're both into my kind of music too so we've been swapping songs. I've also met the other couple and even though the guy seems like a cock his gf is lovely and comes to hang out with us occasionaly. The weird guy who lives opposite me disappeared 2 weeks ago and I jokingly said he was dead which sparked a bit of a panic in the house. One of the girls finally called the real estate and they said he was in hospital. He got back yesterday and looks suspiciously tanned for someone who has been in hospital for 2 weeks. Luckily he hasn't whinged about his wife yet so it's all good.
Work has been pretty damn good too, I've spent the last fortnight underground, the first 4 days with various Deputies inspecting belts, sumps, shafts and goaf seals then I spent this week in the two development panels helping supply bolts, chemicals etc to the CM's. I've learnt a shitload, more than I did in the entire 6 months in Newcastle. I've got another week or two underground before I start to get shuffled around the surface offices to see the surveyors/longwall/geo's etc.
Oh and that's right, you read it correctly, I'm now working a 4 days week :D Booyah!
The house has turned out pretty good, I now have a sofa, a dining table with three chairs and a bed with the best damn mattress ever. All the rest shoulkd be arriving sometime within the next week with a bit of luck. This means I still have no fridge or washing machine but luckily the couple that live below me have been legends. In fact we've become pretty good mates over the last 2 weeks and I've spent a few nights sitting outside with them drinking and smoking. They're both into my kind of music too so we've been swapping songs. I've also met the other couple and even though the guy seems like a cock his gf is lovely and comes to hang out with us occasionaly. The weird guy who lives opposite me disappeared 2 weeks ago and I jokingly said he was dead which sparked a bit of a panic in the house. One of the girls finally called the real estate and they said he was in hospital. He got back yesterday and looks suspiciously tanned for someone who has been in hospital for 2 weeks. Luckily he hasn't whinged about his wife yet so it's all good.
Work has been pretty damn good too, I've spent the last fortnight underground, the first 4 days with various Deputies inspecting belts, sumps, shafts and goaf seals then I spent this week in the two development panels helping supply bolts, chemicals etc to the CM's. I've learnt a shitload, more than I did in the entire 6 months in Newcastle. I've got another week or two underground before I start to get shuffled around the surface offices to see the surveyors/longwall/geo's etc.
Oh and that's right, you read it correctly, I'm now working a 4 days week :D Booyah!
17 March 2009
Grab a cuppa and pull up a chair, this could take a while…
Ok first, a disclaimer. I wrote this over a week ago and haven't actually edited it from the original. I've read it through and really don't like parts of it as they sound wrong but fuck it, read it anyway. It's mostly out of date but I haven't had time to write any more.
I’ll start back on Friday evening: I got back from work to find that the rather nice glass dining table on my balcony had magically transformed itself into a million very small dining tables and scattered itself over half of Newcastle. Once I’d finished being grateful for this fortuitous event (read: screaming “fuck” many, many times) I realised that some fucking pleb had had a brainwave and placed large white pebbles on ledges around my building, approximately 3-4 stories above my balcony. I can only assume it was a bird that knocked about a dozen off, straight onto my suicidal table. Luckily Nick was on his way round and I’d picked up a bottle of wine so started drinking to quell the pain :D We picked up another couple of bottles on our way to his place then got a lift to Newcastle Uni for a night of drunken revelry student style.
The “big O” is a live music event and the main bands playing were The Fratelli’s and The Music though if I’m honest I didn’t pay an awful lot of attention to the music. We met a group of girls within 10mins of walking in the door and the rest is less history than a footnote in time. I don’t have a fucking clue what her name is/was/might be but I spent most of the evening talking to a 28yr old radiologist who was obviously far too sober to be putting up with a goon like me. We got on pretty well but alas, like usual, I walked away without even a peck on the cheek, let alone any means of ever contacting her again. Such is life haha.
I crashed at Nick’s place and got woke up with no hangover but over 30 (count ‘em!) mozzie bites, including 5 on my face… NOT COOL.** Then it was a mad day of packing/cleaning before Di’s cocktail party on Saturday night. This was about 20-25 people, mostly from work and my usual drinking buddies were there, bar Nick. I had an awesome time and managed to leave with a few more mozzie bites and an invite to an 18th birthday party, can you say “Hell Yes”?
Now comes the fun bit… I spent Sunday cleaning more and packing more and then got on a train to the lovely Picton. When I say lovely I mean “tiny redneck town in the middle of fucking nowhere”. I finally moved into my quaint new flat and when I say quaint I mean “dirty, old, salmon pink and fucking depressing”. I didn’t have any electricity for the first 24hrs and because it literally has no furniture except a cooker and a toilet I’ve been sleeping in a sleeping bag and roll mat on my living room floor. No fridge means no food either so I’ve been buying daily and taking stuff to work to put in the fridge there. If only I’d done that with my milk before it turned into a lump of green Death. “Why haven’t you organised furniture by now?” I hear you cry… the answer is simple. That wonderful, organised, efficient and helpful company which I apparently work for still cannot sort their arse from their elbow and work out how to pay for it. It’s been 3wks and still no answer from the reprobates in the accounts department. Hopefully I’ll get a bed before my back disintegrates but who knows? It’s like playing the lottery but with a lot less hope of winning…
My new housemates are an interesting bunch, there’s a young couple beneath me who are studying online for different courses. I assume they work but I do know that they stay up until midnight watching TV, playing music and having friends round. There’s another couple I haven’t seen and a guy I haven’t met. There’s a foreign dude who drives a souped up Chevy and likes to do burnouts at 1am and to finish off a guy moved in opposite me yesterday. He looks about 60 and to be honest, like a tramp. He always seems to catch me when I leave my flat and he kindly regales me with stories about why his wife left him, taking the house, their 2yr old son and to top it off, she’s pregnant again! Now I hate to be a nasty ol’ cynic but he showed me a picture tonight (I forgot to run away) and his wife is a very pretty woman in her 30’s and the son is definitely the postman’s baby… I’m not just unsurprised she left him, I’m fucking amazed she went anywhere near him in the first place! I’m still giving good odds that he’s a nutjob and she is a niece or something but I’d rather not talk to him to find out.
Luckily there is a light at the end of the tunnel in the form of my new job. I’ve enjoyed the last 2 days at work more than I had the entire 6 months I spent rotting at a desk in Newcastle. That’s despite the 6am start and 10-11hr days. I’m working in the development office and it’s a crazy fucking place most of the time, they’re responsible for 3 separate development panels so blazing rows about which one gets the use of limited resources like fitters and electricians are the order of the day. My new boss has been a legend, he has organised so much for me already and I’m incredibly grateful. I’ve got a lift to and from work each day; computer access and I’ve already had my underground induction. He even left his office for 30mins so I could use his internet to look for furniture. Everyone I’ve met so far has been pretty cool, they’re mostly older guys in their 30’s and 40’s but there are a fair few younger guys and a few women too (!!). I’m starting underground on Monday for at least 2wks, maybe a month depending. Because being underground means 10hr shifts (they run 3x 8hr underground shifts) I may only have to work 4 days a week because my boss wants me to keep to a 38hr week as much as possible because they can’t pay me overtime. Possibly the biggest improvement is that no-one gives a fuck about what you look like or what car you drive or any of that pathetic materialistic shit, they just do their job and have a good time doing it. Once I buy a pair of jeans I’m never wearing a shirt to work again!
That’s about it for now… this may well be out of date by the time I upload it. Leave me some comments people so I know there’s more than one person reading this!
** An ellipse AND capitals, both almost definitely used incorrectly... Suck that shit up!
I’ll start back on Friday evening: I got back from work to find that the rather nice glass dining table on my balcony had magically transformed itself into a million very small dining tables and scattered itself over half of Newcastle. Once I’d finished being grateful for this fortuitous event (read: screaming “fuck” many, many times) I realised that some fucking pleb had had a brainwave and placed large white pebbles on ledges around my building, approximately 3-4 stories above my balcony. I can only assume it was a bird that knocked about a dozen off, straight onto my suicidal table. Luckily Nick was on his way round and I’d picked up a bottle of wine so started drinking to quell the pain :D We picked up another couple of bottles on our way to his place then got a lift to Newcastle Uni for a night of drunken revelry student style.
The “big O” is a live music event and the main bands playing were The Fratelli’s and The Music though if I’m honest I didn’t pay an awful lot of attention to the music. We met a group of girls within 10mins of walking in the door and the rest is less history than a footnote in time. I don’t have a fucking clue what her name is/was/might be but I spent most of the evening talking to a 28yr old radiologist who was obviously far too sober to be putting up with a goon like me. We got on pretty well but alas, like usual, I walked away without even a peck on the cheek, let alone any means of ever contacting her again. Such is life haha.
I crashed at Nick’s place and got woke up with no hangover but over 30 (count ‘em!) mozzie bites, including 5 on my face… NOT COOL.** Then it was a mad day of packing/cleaning before Di’s cocktail party on Saturday night. This was about 20-25 people, mostly from work and my usual drinking buddies were there, bar Nick. I had an awesome time and managed to leave with a few more mozzie bites and an invite to an 18th birthday party, can you say “Hell Yes”?
Now comes the fun bit… I spent Sunday cleaning more and packing more and then got on a train to the lovely Picton. When I say lovely I mean “tiny redneck town in the middle of fucking nowhere”. I finally moved into my quaint new flat and when I say quaint I mean “dirty, old, salmon pink and fucking depressing”. I didn’t have any electricity for the first 24hrs and because it literally has no furniture except a cooker and a toilet I’ve been sleeping in a sleeping bag and roll mat on my living room floor. No fridge means no food either so I’ve been buying daily and taking stuff to work to put in the fridge there. If only I’d done that with my milk before it turned into a lump of green Death. “Why haven’t you organised furniture by now?” I hear you cry… the answer is simple. That wonderful, organised, efficient and helpful company which I apparently work for still cannot sort their arse from their elbow and work out how to pay for it. It’s been 3wks and still no answer from the reprobates in the accounts department. Hopefully I’ll get a bed before my back disintegrates but who knows? It’s like playing the lottery but with a lot less hope of winning…
My new housemates are an interesting bunch, there’s a young couple beneath me who are studying online for different courses. I assume they work but I do know that they stay up until midnight watching TV, playing music and having friends round. There’s another couple I haven’t seen and a guy I haven’t met. There’s a foreign dude who drives a souped up Chevy and likes to do burnouts at 1am and to finish off a guy moved in opposite me yesterday. He looks about 60 and to be honest, like a tramp. He always seems to catch me when I leave my flat and he kindly regales me with stories about why his wife left him, taking the house, their 2yr old son and to top it off, she’s pregnant again! Now I hate to be a nasty ol’ cynic but he showed me a picture tonight (I forgot to run away) and his wife is a very pretty woman in her 30’s and the son is definitely the postman’s baby… I’m not just unsurprised she left him, I’m fucking amazed she went anywhere near him in the first place! I’m still giving good odds that he’s a nutjob and she is a niece or something but I’d rather not talk to him to find out.
Luckily there is a light at the end of the tunnel in the form of my new job. I’ve enjoyed the last 2 days at work more than I had the entire 6 months I spent rotting at a desk in Newcastle. That’s despite the 6am start and 10-11hr days. I’m working in the development office and it’s a crazy fucking place most of the time, they’re responsible for 3 separate development panels so blazing rows about which one gets the use of limited resources like fitters and electricians are the order of the day. My new boss has been a legend, he has organised so much for me already and I’m incredibly grateful. I’ve got a lift to and from work each day; computer access and I’ve already had my underground induction. He even left his office for 30mins so I could use his internet to look for furniture. Everyone I’ve met so far has been pretty cool, they’re mostly older guys in their 30’s and 40’s but there are a fair few younger guys and a few women too (!!). I’m starting underground on Monday for at least 2wks, maybe a month depending. Because being underground means 10hr shifts (they run 3x 8hr underground shifts) I may only have to work 4 days a week because my boss wants me to keep to a 38hr week as much as possible because they can’t pay me overtime. Possibly the biggest improvement is that no-one gives a fuck about what you look like or what car you drive or any of that pathetic materialistic shit, they just do their job and have a good time doing it. Once I buy a pair of jeans I’m never wearing a shirt to work again!
That’s about it for now… this may well be out of date by the time I upload it. Leave me some comments people so I know there’s more than one person reading this!
** An ellipse AND capitals, both almost definitely used incorrectly... Suck that shit up!
7 March 2009
Placefiller
I'm crazy busy atm with packing, cleaning and drinking myself silly.
Am moving tomorrow and will have a wireless dongle in a few days so I can post in my own sweet time and harass you lot on MSN at silly hours :D
Went to an awesome night at the uni last night and am suffering for it today but I have a cocktail party in two hours so my liver may just give up the ghost.
See you on the other side...
Am moving tomorrow and will have a wireless dongle in a few days so I can post in my own sweet time and harass you lot on MSN at silly hours :D
Went to an awesome night at the uni last night and am suffering for it today but I have a cocktail party in two hours so my liver may just give up the ghost.
See you on the other side...
1 March 2009
26 February 2009
Fuck, fuckity fucker.
Yeh so I got told today that I can't move for at least another week because the estate agents and my finance department are having issues over deposits and invoices so no contract. Then the chief engineer basically told me to hurry the fuck up and get down there ASAP. So the bright fucking spark in HR emails me with "maybe you should go into a motel until it's sorted". NO SHIT SHERLOCK! That's exactly what I suggested 3weeks ago and spent two weeks trying to persuade her to do but no, she waits until people start getting shitty before she gets her arse in gear. So now I'm waiting for even more authorisation/paperwork/inter-departmental-warfare to happen before that's sorted. FUCK! If they'd given me the cash and a signed letter from my boss I could have been living down there 24hrs after confirming I had the job!
So you could say I'm a wee bit hacked off atm but luckily I have the pleasure of cleaning my entire flat tonight to look forward to. They kindly forgot to tell me when the "open house" for my flat is... 4.45pm tomorrow as it happens. So I have a lovely evening to look forward to.
Oh and both of the Newcastle Uni freshers events are on Fridays... as it's a 5hr train journey from Picton to Newcastle I doubt I'm going to be able to finish work at the mine and get back here in time to shower/change and go party. FUCK.
I am actually saving some good news for the end though: MINDLESS SELF INDULGENCE ARE PLAYING IN SYDNEY IN APRIL!!! I will be going, no doubt about it. It's even worth the $90 ticket price + train far and drinks.
A review of Soundwave is coming up, honest.
So you could say I'm a wee bit hacked off atm but luckily I have the pleasure of cleaning my entire flat tonight to look forward to. They kindly forgot to tell me when the "open house" for my flat is... 4.45pm tomorrow as it happens. So I have a lovely evening to look forward to.
Oh and both of the Newcastle Uni freshers events are on Fridays... as it's a 5hr train journey from Picton to Newcastle I doubt I'm going to be able to finish work at the mine and get back here in time to shower/change and go party. FUCK.
I am actually saving some good news for the end though: MINDLESS SELF INDULGENCE ARE PLAYING IN SYDNEY IN APRIL!!! I will be going, no doubt about it. It's even worth the $90 ticket price + train far and drinks.
A review of Soundwave is coming up, honest.
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