Despite working 2 jobs and having more work
lined up I didn't give up on my goal of working in mining. I still
continued making enquiries, calling people and persevering.
It all paid off when a door suddenly opened. I re-sent an e-mail of
interest to one of my leads and he called me back like an hour later
saying that someone was taken off a job or something and there was an
immediate opening. I said I was in without hesitating.
I remember being in the supermarket at the time, Woolworths in the CBD
to be precise. I danced around the supermarket like I owned the place
and then proceeded to empty all the contents of my shopping basket and
buy something edible instead.
Naturally I was ecstatic
when I got back to the hostel and shared the news with my entourage
there. Everyone around me, those that I knew and those that I didn't
all asked me to try and get them a job. I passively dismissed their
requests and now in retrospect don't mention my work to anyone at all.
For starters, if someone really wants to get in then they can go
through the necessary steps to get in. Second of all, even though I had
spent a week or two with some of the boys, I certainly didn't know
them very well, much less the random people that came and asked me for a
job before asking me for my name. I don't tell anyone what I do for
this reason, they become too curious and/or envious. I am not even
sharing what profession I am doing with the whole world (at least not
until I leave the country) mainly to keep what dwindling work there is
left available to myself while I am still down under. Please don't ask
I'm not going into specific details.
I
told them that I would be leaving immediately at both of my jobs and
no-one seemed to care very much. A few days later I was on a bus to
the airport to catch a red-eye flight across the country. I was
extremely nervous as you can imagine and this didn't do well to help me
integrate into my new profession.
After what seemed like an eternity, we landed at Mt. Isa airport and then went out to Cloncurry,
from where most of the work would be done. They put us up in a caravan
park. Having never been to one and fresh out of the dorms I didn't
know what to expect. I saw my room and it had a sofa, tv,
kitchen, fridge & air conditioning. I thought it was the epitome
of luxury. When I opened the slide door and saw that it had its own
bathroom and double bed I nearly fainted! What a change this was! I was
expecting to be in a shared room with one of the other workers. No
chance!
The
work was tedious, physical, technical, boring, dehydrating and long.
Too long. What made matters worse is that we worked in segments,
advancing only a very little bit throughout the day. Most of the time
was spent setting up gear (which I didn't know how to do at first) and
then repairing it ( I was best at causing the problem to be repaired in
the first place). There was very little progress, but that's just the
nature of the job.
The
people I worked with were as unpleasant as could be. Years of being
out bush and not having much contact with the outside world must have
had a profound impact upon these people. They whinged,
gossiped, were socially awkward, in fact, they only seemed to balance
each other out and be able to function when in each other's company.
Being the backpacker, newbie and foreigner I copped a lot of shit from
my colleagues. Fortunately, I always had the last laugh and continued
to progress where they ended up becoming stagnant, as I was to find
out later.
The
job became tougher as the weeks went by. It wasn't possible to
traverse one section where we were working so we had to carry all the
bits over to where they were needed. If you ever want to burn a
gazillion calories try walking up a rocky hill all day carrying 30+ kg
on your back. To make things even more interesting, try digging large
holes along the way. Oh and did I mention that it would be 35-45C and
there would be heaps of deadly snakes around? Now you're starting to
get an idea.
The
work was physically draining and even more so mentally, as I didn't
fit in at all with my colleagues. I still persevered and they couldn't
hold anything against me because they knew that I worked harder than
any of them and without my persistence, things would have gone a lot
slower or not have happened.
Yeah
that was about it. I spent 5 weeks up there, working every single day.
That was on top of 3 straight weeks of working 2 jobs and the previous
2 weeks of arriving in a new country and discovering things for the
first time. I was beyond exhausted and was delighted when we went on
break.
No comments:
Post a Comment