That is what you are met with when you first walk into Building 155 of your first day on the ice. It is that time of the season where everyone is looking for something to complain about because they are getting homesick or just restless from being in the same building for 4 months. I am not complaining because this is a carefully thought out thesis. Well, it might be a bit of a rant. I work for a large corporation that is a weapons manufacturer. It seems when we have meetings and with all the signs around the building that the number one thing, which is in fact what they tell us, is our safety. I find that a bit humorous. I have worked for an evil organization before that I will not name, but starts with Macy'_. They where also concerned for everyones safety and maybe you work somewhere where they might be annoying about the safety at times and have you do things you deem unnecessary in order to finish the job. For example, when I am cutting anything in the kitchen, I have to wear kevlar gloves so that if i do slip with the knife, or get shot in the hand, I will not be injured. This at the same time makes cutting more difficult because I can not really feel the food and it sometimes is prone to slipping more
One thing that I do not always like, and working in the kitchen business am not used to, is taking mandatory breaks! To this day, I am still not sure what breaks I am supposed to take and how long they are supposed to be, but if it goes noticed that I have gone a few days without my "15 minute stretch break", my supervisor may mention it to me and force me to leave my work behind to go to stretches that are supposed to help me do my job. How about I just stay here and work 15 minutes more, that would help me do my job more efficiently! While on the subject of breaks, one thing that is a little backwards is our work schedule here. Most everyone has grown accustomed to it, but it seems a bit odd that making us work 6 days a week, 10-12 hours per day is the safest thing to do. I have noticed that many people by day 6, are a bit slow and unfocused and ready to be done for the day, with safety maybe not the first thought in head.
Meetings. Every job has meetings, some that are necessary and some that are just boring and will put you to sleep and is something more to maybe cover the companies own hide. Well, every Thursday, our department has a "Safty Meeting". This is where we all take 30 minutes and go sit down and listen to our boss talk about things that relate to safety from the past week or upcoming week. For example, some past discussions have been how to mop properly, how to sort our trash, how to carry things(Don't forget your neutral wrist'!!), and playing jeopardy for what food was served the year before for a holiday. All important things, I'm sure. Then again there is the talk of brute force in which last year, someone was forced to talk to people about why you should not use brute force, as he was an example and had earlier pulled a rack out of a hot oven, hitting himself in the face with it, and burning himself. I only speculate that he was told that he would be in more trouble, maybe even affect his bonus if he did not give the speech. Everyone's favorite and least attended meeting is the monthly "All-hands" meeting, which everyone on station (population 1000 at times), is supposed to congregate into a room that is meant to seat maybe 300 people (fire hazard?). Again, in this meeting, they talk to the whole community, but not just about safety topics, often including them though. Shortly after I first arrived here, there was one of these meetings because in the previous 30 hours, there had been 3 accidents on the base. Now, this is not a good situation, and they reassured us all that we should be careful, take our time, and if someone needs something wednesday, they will still need it on thursday! The next week, we had another safety meeting and the subject that upset people the most was the subject that because we were apparantly behind in work for the upcoming groups on their way in, no one would be getting the much anticipated 2-day weekend coming up. End result was people taking half-days on their own and the flights that were supposed to be coming in were delayed because of weather for a week. My personal favorite was a meeting that occured last season, of which I was not part of. The meeting subject was an emergency meeting to talk about fire safety. Little did everyone in the galley know that at that same time, there was a hut burning to the ground on the ice but no one knew since they could not see or get to the building. Many instruments and probably the whole building would have been saved if the "emergency" meeting had not been called that day.
