Pretty in Pink

Today I was thrilled to hear that the girl who worked the day shift at my job broke a forklift! Finally someone else screwed up. Sure, she only ripped one rear tire off of the machine and I was able to get both off, but who's keeping score? The part of it all that made me most happy was that our replacement forklift was Pinky and she awaited me on the charge floor when I arrived. Maybe I should backtrack a bit for those who aren't aware of my devotion to Pinky.

Almost 4 months ago when I started working at Teck, there were 2 forklifts for us to train on and one of them was a pink forklift which I affectionately named Pinky. Pinky has a bit of a history. Many years ago when she was still yellow like the rest of the forklifts around here, she was mostly driven by one of the few women who works up here. One day the woman got completely fed up with the guys stealing her machine when her back was turned so she took it upon herself to grab a can of spray paint and paint it bright pink. It was a brilliant idea because men like to be overly macho most of the time and would never be caught dead riding a pink forklift. Heaven forbid! Normally this forklift is not allowed on the charge floor (where I work) because it has unauthorized tires on it, but they needed an extra machine to train all of the new students wandering around the place.

For some reason I instantly took to this old pink thing. Everyone else hates driving it because it's old, creaky and not as fast as the new ones. I think it may have something to do with my love of ratty old cars, but I favoured driving it over all other ones. I was sad when after about a week they took Pinky away and told me to drive the usual charge floor forklifts. But today she returned to me!

The guy who was to relieve me for my breaks today is a big muscly young guy. When he made his way up to take over, I hopped off the forklift and said, "I ordered the most manly forklift they could get for me." He laughed and shook his head at the ridiculous machine that he was going to be forced to drive. He made a comment about how he didn't think he could handle driving a pink forklift and hesitated before climbing on. Is it really that big of a deal? Really? Yeah, it actually was! When I came up from my break I was devastated to see that he had painted Pinky red! RED?!?!? How could he do such a thing? I'm quite certain that my jaw must have hit the ground hard. All I could say was, "I can't believe you did that!" He was all proud of himself for maiming the poor thing.

So I sulked for about 5 minutes when one of the guys from the electrolytic side came over to me and said, "What happened? It's red!" I nodded in sadness. Then he added, "Why don't you go down to the paint shop and get some pink paint and turn her back?" My heart quickened and my lips smiled wide. Why hadn't I thought of that?? I guess I didn't think that they would have an ample supply of pink paint hanging around. But I found a full can of it, hid it up my sleeve so my nemesis red painter would not see me carrying it when I walked by him and made my way back up to make sure that Pinky would not die this day. Sometimes you have to fight for your right to be pink.

Belly vs. Belly

So yesterday while enjoying my lunch in the lunchroom at work, a man who I have never seen before...he must have been working an extra shift, made a comment that kind of offended me. No, offended is not the right word. I know that there are a lot of people who feel/think as this man does and I think it's such an odd and backward way to think about something that it just struck something in me that made me a bit angry in some way. Let me explain.

He said that the other day he saw a very pregnant woman wearing a bikini top and thought that it was disgusting. He wondered why women did that because it was so gross and he didn't want to see that.

Disgusting? Gross? Seriously? It was one of those moments when I really wanted nothing more than to speak my mind but I bit my tongue and decided to mind my own business. The statement just boggled my mind I guess. What is so disgusting about a woman displaying her pregnant belly? We have to look at men's bloated and over sized beer guts all of the time when we go to the beach, what's wrong with a baby belly? At least a woman's stretched stomach is a healthy and natural distention which has been happening for thousands of years as we repopulate the planet. It's not like she's hurting anyone for displaying her body like this. Men who abuse their bodies to the point of ginormous bellies are hurting themselves on an unhealthy level, and yet they feel no shame in going around topless in public places. How would they like to be called disgusting or gross?

Now I get that some people are very modest and don't like to see an outright display of skin like that, but using the word "disgusting" to describe this was just downright rude and could be hugely offensive to some people. Now if this were me with the protruding baby belly, I could never be the kind of person to show it off like some women and I actually applaud the women who do it. Women have a hard enough time with self esteem issues and most of us are terrified to show off our bodies or gain even just a few pounds. Meanwhile these women are proud to have put on weight and show some skin to tell the world how excited they are to be a mom. I say free bikinis to all pregnant women!

Tip of the Day: Don't forget to wax!

Thanks for the Memories

Only 2 more shifts at work. Wow. Where did the summer go? We are flying back to PEI in 8 days and I am just blown away at the speed at which the day has arrived.

Every month each shift at work has a safety meeting to discuss another successful injury free month and to look over any incident reports from other plants. The guys surprised me today with a giant (and I mean GIANT) cake wishing me the best of luck in school. And yeah, they somehow managed to get an amazing forklift stencil to put on the cake. They also all pitched in to buy me a gift certificate to my favourite clothing store here. What a bunch of great guys eh?? I'm going to miss them lots. Thanks for the memories guys...and thanks for putting up with me and not getting frustrated at the millions of questions I asked and the numerous machines I broke.

The one thing that I always wondered about my job and the guys who work there is just how much they censor themselves in my presence. Most of them are quite mild mannered but there are one or two which will say anything and everything when I am around. Today was the day that I learned that they are actually holding back immensely with what they would talk about if I weren't around. One of the men (who is secretly my favourite but don't tell the others) was saying some really crude comments to another guy and didn't see me walk into the lunchroom and sneak up behind him. When he turned around and saw me, I think his face turned about 9 shades of red and said, "oh...didn't see you there kiddo!" I think it's kind of sad that they don't just say what they want to when I am around. How are we supposed to make solid judgements about the people we know if they hold back who they truly are all of the time? I understand that he watched his mouth around me as a sign of respect for me, but still, always be yourself!

Seattle Trip

The trip to Seattle to visit Gill and her family was officially a success! Chris and I drove down to Spokane on the first day (to split up the drive) and stayed in a lovely hotel just outside of the city. It was called the Pheasant Inn and Suites and was truly a great place to stay. Pool, hot tub, free buffet breakfast, free cookies and hot chocolate in the lobby, good sized rooms...plus HBO! Gotta give a shout out for the HBO. The next morning we did the rest of the drive and headed to where they live, which is called Lake Stevens and is about 40 minutes outside of Seattle. We got super duper ultra mega lost at one point which set us back about an hour and a half, but after finding free Internet at a Starbucks and a quick reference from Google Maps, we were back on the road and on our way! We found the house around 5pm (after circling the neighbourhood 4 times and getting really confused since there are apparently two houses with the same address in the neighbourhood!) and were greeted with open arms. After a lovely dinner and a goodnight to the kids, me and Gill whomped the guys at Cranium. Poor guys. They really tried hard though.



The next morning, Gill's sister came over to babysit the kids while the adults all headed to the city for the day. Most of the day was spent walking around Pike Place Market (I begin to drool just thinking about that place), the Pier and downtown Seattle. Honestly, walking around that city makes me happy. I have yet to find something about it that I do not like...except perhaps that it isn't closer to where I am. That would make it perfect.



Chris and I tried to sneak into a strip club while Gill and Ralph sat down for a drink elsewhere. It didn't work though.



We all walked over to the Space Needle and Chris and I took a ride up the 520 feet elevator (takes 43 seconds) to the Observation Deck to have a peek of the view. I had been up there before since I've been to the city many times, but Chris had never been so we figured we'd might as well take a look...we'd come all that way already anyway. As always, the view was beautiful.

After spending the whole day walking, we headed to Gill and Ralph's favourite restaurant for dinner. Needless to say, dinner was a bit of a bust. Sort of. It's a long story, but to sum it up, they changed the menu very recently which we were unaware of and removed the two items that Gill and Ralph always get. Plus, the place was out of 5 menu items, 4 of which we just happened to order. We felt so sorry for the waiter who was probably just equally frustrated every time he had to come back to the table to tell us that another item we ordered was not available. I can just picture the scene in the kitchen...

Chef": "Hey Joey, this table ordered the fillet mignon? Sorry man, we're all out of that."
Waiter: "What? I've already told them that the beer, chicken dish and seafood/rice dish are no longer available. I can't go back again to say we're out of steak!"
Chef: "Sorry dude. We've only got what we've got."
Waiter: "I'll give you my whole nights tips if you go out there and tell them. I just can't do it again."
Chef: "No way man. I work the back of the restaurant for a reason; so I don't have to deal with people."
Waiter: "Oh man! This blows!" and he stalked out the kitchen.

The one great thing was that the hostess woman heard about our table troubles and came over to apologize. She also gave us all of our entrees for free, gave Ralph some free sushi and offered us free dessert! We only paid for our drinks, so that was a rather awesome surprise for a semi-crappy experience. Oh well. Free food!

The next day was a bit more sightseeing of the area they live in. We packed everyone up in the truck and went for a drive to look around. We also went on a nice hike through a bit of a canyon. It was very very pretty. I would have loved to have been able to go through there through the Spring when the waters were running high. But it was beautiful no matter what.



After the hike we went home for a quick lunch. Then the boys (Chris, Ralph, Parker and Phinn) all went to look at fancy shmancy cars together so that Chris could drool all over them. Myself, Gill and Piper went and did some shopping. As always, I spent way too much money but got some lovely pieces of clothing in the process (like an amazing vintage looking dress). After car drooling and clothes shopping, we all met back at the house. The kids headed off to bed and us adults played some board games. Now I don't want to brag, but if you ever need to be on a winning team for Cranium, just give me a call.

As I mentioned already, it was a great trip and I am sad that I couldn't spend more time down there to visit with my friends. Thanks for having us guys! I love you dearly and can't wait until I can get my butt back down there again.

Tip of the Day: Sometimes dried up waterfalls look like giant labia.

Birthday Tradition

So at Teck there's a tradition in which when it is your birthday, you bring donuts for everyone (or something donut-like). As kids were were spoiled with homemade goodies and birthday cakes, so I've gotten used to always wanting to make things from scratch. People almost always notice and appreciate homemade treats, and that makes the effort worth it. So today is my birthday and I am working night shift, so I decided to ditch the donut idea and make some homemade cupcakes for the guys. Chocolate zucchini cupcakes (with a hint of orange) to be exact.

I loved the idea of making these for the guys. Not only are is it a delicious recipe but I get to add in the humour of there being a source of vegetable (very small source) in the cupcakes. They always joke about my abundance of veggies in my lunches so this was a good way to throw that factor in. In the long run though, all this lead to was me running around like mad person trying to bake and decorate these cupcakes before getting to work today. Yeah I could have just went to Tim Hortons and bought some donuts, but no...that would have been too easy. It's reasons like making homemade birthday cupcakes that makes it so that I never have any extra time and am living my day to day life feeling rushed and unprepared. Yeah I made some yummy treats for the guys, but what do I get in return? Well, I leave for a trip to Seattle in about 12 hours (I write this blog from work on my break) and I have a page long list of things I need to do before we take off, one of them being packing! Also in the past four days, no exaggeration required, I've only seen Chris for a handful of hours in total. It seems that it's been just a quick kiss as he's leaving the house while I'm coming in...and vice versa.

The original plan for the trip was to come home from night shift at 6:30am, sleep until noonish then drive to Seattle and arrive around 9pm. But as always, life gets in the way and causes a slight detour in the plans. Pam is in the process of trying to sell her house (the house we are staying in this summer) and a realtor is dropping by tomorrow to take some pictures of the inside and outside of the house. This means that all of the cleaning and grass cutting and yard work that I was planning to do when we got back from the trip now has to be done before we go. Of course I get the news about this the day before we plan to head out. Great. So the new plan is to do all of the work at the house, leave later on in the afternoon and drive the 2.5 hours to Spokane where we will spend the night. From there we can get up early and do the rest of the drive to Seattle. I figured this was a much better idea then just doing the full drive all at once. Trying to find a house in the dark at around 2am (3am if I get lost) in an area that I have never been to before is just not my idea of fun. Especially only on a few hours worth of sleep.

Tip of the Day: Battery powered forklifts are indeed quiet enough to sneak up behind someone and scare them with the blast of the horn.

Silly Search and Rescue

Today is a day that I am truly humiliated to be me. Why do you ask? Well for one thing. I am crouched on a chair afraid to put my feet on the floor as I type this. That's one place to start I suppose.

I was washing some dishes when I noticed that Splash was laying on the carpet, about 5 feet away from her bed. I asked her to go on her bed about four times before she finally listened and lumbered over there. She seemed really nervous for some reason but grudgingly sat down on her bed. As I reached down to place something into the freezer (we have a fridge on top, freezer on bottom) the biggest spider I have ever seen in my life crawled out from the corner of Splash's bed, then tucked underneath the fridge and scared the living shit out of me. The worst part of it all is that I am home alone and sitting in the fetal position on a chair wondering how to deal with this situation. Splash is sitting here beside me and keeps looking up at me with a worried look on her face as she nudges my arm. Plan A: Call Chris and have him come to my rescue. If he doesn't answer his phone, Plan B: Run to Amy's house and hide there. If Amy is sound asleep and doesn't answer the door, plan C: Call the National Guard. Luckily Chris picked up his phone and is on the way over! I didn't tell him what was going on, only that I needed him to come home for a few minutes and it's too embarrassing to say why...but I need help now!

Now I am sitting on my bed with the most horrible heeby-jeebies I have ever had in my life, with my cupcakes burning in the oven and my boyfriend trying to figure out how to find this thing. Did I mention it's 11:30 at night? He has moved the dog's bed and the fridge and it is no where to be seen. How am I supposed to sleep tonight knowing that this thing is in the house, lurking behind any corner or under any surface. I feel so impotent and useless at the moment. Chris keeps tossing suggestions at me for the best way to attack this situation and every time he mentions me having to help (aka, get off of this bed), my face twists into a contorted position that one would assume I am being tortured. Why did I have to see that thing? I was living in blissful ignorance of it's presence in the house and would have been more than happy not knowing it was living in the house. (As I shudder violently.)

And...it's dead. Chris has guts on the bottom of his shoe. Why do I have to be such a girl sometimes. This makes me feel so incompetent as a human being and totally silly as a female. I had to call my boyfriend from the job he's doing to come and kill a spider for me. What have I become? Yes I know it's just a stupid bug (sorry, arachnid) and it can't hurt me, but there's just something about certain spiders that freak me out! Honestly though, this thing was really big. It could have eaten my foot if I had not been careful.

This was probably the most bizarre blog I have ever written. A play-by-play of the search and destroy of a giant house spider. At least writing this kept my brain busy while my body went into fight or flight mode.

Yes, I am still sitting on the bed.

Employee Evaluation

So for all of the Teck employees and especially for the summer students, the supervisors fill out employee rating sheets and have a meeting with each employee to explain how they feel about that person's progress as a worker. There are 11 points to criteria to discuss; safety practices, attitude, work performance, initiative, dependability, cooperativeness, critical thinking, responsibility, adaptability, communication skills and fitness. Each point is rated on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being poor/below standard and 10 being excellent/way above standard). They also look at your attendance and whether or not you should be recommended to be retained at Teck or discharged. The main purpose of this for summer students is for employer reference. If I were to ask Teck for a reference for a future job, they would send a copy of this to the possible employer to explain what kind of worker I was.

My boss Larry called me in the other day to sit me down and discuss my employee rating sheet. He handed it to me and let me have a quick look over before we discussed it. My eyes quickly ran down the rating scales and honestly, my heart sank. All I saw were the numbers jumping out at me. They were not what I would have expected at all. I thought of myself as a pretty good employee and to see what they really thought of me honestly made me rethink what kind of worker I am. That's when Larry gave a little chuckle and said, "and here's your real rating sheet" and handed me the actual copy. Phhhhew! That was a relief. Much higher scores than the previous one. Do you see what I have to deal with at work???

After I left the meeting room and took a few minutes to read through the fake sheet, I had to laugh. The comments that he put in were pretty hilarious. In society today we are so hung up on the numbers that we skip the reading of the words and immediately look at the numbers. For instance, body weight. We get all worried about what the scales say and don't take into consideration how we feel at the weight we are at. If I had read the comments then I would have easily figured out it was a joke much more quickly.

So here's a quick run through of what the phony rating sheet said:
*Safety Practices - 3/10 - We saw her wear her hard hat a few times (I don't have to wear a hard hat where I work so this comment actually made me upset when I read it at first because I wasn't in the wrong here).

*Attitude - 8/10 - She definitely has an attitude, pink hair?

*Work Performance - 5/10 - And she managed to read 8 novels this summer (actually I should be able to get through 9 by the end of it).

*Initiative - 4/10 - First one to leave when something goes wrong.

*Dependability - 2/10 - Missed her third shift (I actually took a day off for Sarah's wedding and everyone was on my case, jokingly of course, that I got a day off so soon after beginning working there).

*Cooperativeness - 4/10 - Sits quietly in the lunchroom, never talks to others.

*Critical Thinking - 3/10 - She always asks others what to do (only when really confused or breaking things).

*Responsibility - 10/10 - Broke a forklift and damaged our elevator (he gave me such high points because I'm the first to admit when I mess up).



*Adapability - 3/10 - She hates change (this coming for the girl who changes her hair colout every week?).

*Communication Skills - 8/10 - Don't know, she never talks.

*Fitness - 4/10 - Seems to get a lot of sleep at work (I sleep the least out of everyone).

Tip of the Day: Never trust your boss.

Oh, and he also recommended me to be discharged. Geez. Way to make a girl feel special.

But on the bright side, I also won and received a $50 gift card from Teck. Yay for gift cards to Canadian Tire!