Day 2 was better. No tears, I think that constitutes a successful day. I made it in for the 6:30am safety meeting (which felt like an accomplishment as it was very dark and foggy and I managed to find the rig).
After the meeting I went back into camp for breakfast, which was a major treat as the cook had made french toast. Let me explain why; for the past 2 years, I’ve been spoiled by my sister every morning with a warm breakfast. J is a morning person, and actually doesn’t find it painful to wake up at 5am (meanwhile upstairs I’m repeatedly hitting the snooze button). J insisted that working out in the morning was the way to go, and as she was my ride to work unless I wanted to take the bus I went with her. Last June J got married and moved out to Ottawa for the year. What does this mean for me? I’m still getting up to work out when I’m in Calgary, but due to the bad sleeping past my alarm habit I have, it means breakfast on the go (coffee and a muffin and more coffee when I get to work.) So to see french toast at the camp this morning made it a good one, as it is one of my favourite breakfasts that J always used to make me.
After breakfast I talked over instant messaging with another colleague who had been through this field program. She said my initial reactions were normal and she felt the same way for the first bit too. She also advised me to make friends with the driller and foreman as once they talked to me everyone else would too. We then went on to talk about her wedding planning and she mentioned she was in Seattle looking at dresses and gave me the name of the designer she likes. Looking at the website made me miss one of my true passions, fashion design and sewing and wonder what I’m doing out here? My colleague wished me luck and told me I could do it. She said that after every hitch she would treat herself to something girly on the way home; cute clothes, massage, spa day or a pedicure!
Afterwards I went on a hazard hunt with the safety tech. We finished in the doghouse where I took my colleague’s advice and spent some time talking to the driller. I also got to see the roughnecks in action, continually adding drill pipe with the infamous DOPE that a friend who had worked on the rigs told me about. DOPE in rig lingo is a drilling lubricant. There is a big bucket on the rig floor and the roughnecks take this tool that looks like a giant Q-tip, dip it into the DOPE and then lubricate the joints of the drill pipe before the iron roughneck screws them together. The reason the friend was telling me about DOPE is that he experienced a practical joke where a Styrofoam cup would get dipped in the DOPE and dropped on someone’s hardhat without them knowing. So he warned me that if at the safety meetings everyone was laughing, to look around at other people’s hardhats and if I didn’t see a cup, it was most likely on my hat. Thank goodness that hasn’t happened yet.
In other news, I had refereed a few pre-season basketball college games the weekend before my first hitch and had sent an email to the assignor thanking him for the chance to get in some more games. He had responded with the following message:
Your welcome...keep working on your game, what I've heard is voice and presence. Otherwise, good feedback. Sometimes Carolyn, we need to step outside our comfort zone and stretch ourselves beyond what feels normal, until the new behaviour becomes new normal.
I thought it was interesting that he was able to give me some unsolicited words of wisdom, that are applicable to my officiating and to the field work situation without knowing anything about my career or personal life. Sometimes God speaks to you in the funniest ways. Stepping out of my comfort zone…that is exactly what I need to do for the next 9 months. This isn’t the comfortable office that I have gotten used to for the past 2 years. This is new and unfamiliar ground. The lyrics from the Jars of Clay song, “Call my Name” came to mind:
“Lead me out to the ground I’ve never walked on, only to rely on You alone”
God is always trying to help me grow and even though I can’t see it right now, perhaps this is preparing me for something in my future.
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