Week Three In The Tundra

Week 3 in the tundra, the job is going to shite. Everything that could go wrong is going wrong and as I am the site services manager all the engineers are looking at me for answers. I have been sending out misleading e-mails to distract everyone and hopefully I can keep doing this for the next 8 days. My flight out of here is all screwed up and I may end up spending three days in Seoul but that doesn’t have to be so bad. The worst aspect of this is that as this site is owned by the worlds biggest oil company I would have expected a very professional and well engineered project but what I have found is probably one of the worst thought out cluster f*cks I have had the misfortune to work on. I am not sure why this has come to pass but could be due to the accelerated timeframe that was used or the fact it is in Russia. Perhaps a crazy combination of people demanding the latest technology when simple is the best, this is what I call technical arrogance.
The weather is about as cold as I have ever experienced in my short life and I can say I really hate the cold, I have become a sun worshipper and I really hate the cold weather. It has been below freezing for the last week and it snowed over night two days ago and the ground has been permanently snow covered since, this is not even winter yet, I cannot imagine how bad deep winter can be. I will do anything rather than come back here, there is no doubt in my mind that I will quit before coming back here.

the first snow of Autumn and solid frozen ground for 5 days







I have been contacting every contracting agency to get away from this type of work and get back to a normal 9-5 in the middle east, I love the heat and sun and will prostitute myself for any amount to stay working in the sun. I have been contacted by an agency that is recruiting for the worlds biggest gas project in Qatar so once again I have a chance of getting out there on married status and with a free house and free car and free medical and free schools for the kids, sounds pretty good and it is for at least 3 years, that could get me near my retirement goal. Only 8 days to endure and I just cannot wait for the days to tick away, what a life to be wishing my life away.