Settling In

            Working as a dinning attendant has completely blown my mind. I grew up assuming the lunch ladies at school lived their entire lives in blue smocks, wearing hairnets and black safety shoes. Somehow in my mind it stuck that that's all one could ever be once accepting the role of "Public School Children Feeder." I now know when the people are fed and the dishes washed, it's time to feel human again. It has amazed me how diverse the group I'm working with is. Ex-carnies, phycological evaluators, river guides, massage therapists, even a guy who was tagging squirrels last winter make up our little 37 person family. The galley staff works odd hours from the rest of the station so we end up spending most of our time on and off the clock together. The first time I went out with the crowd was shocking because I didn't recognize almost half the group outside of black Dickie's and over sized blue Polo's. I think it was that lack of hair restraints and flecks of food and dish soap that were throwing me off.
            In conclusion, to the lunch ladies who served me throughout public school, you are all beautiful and dynamic people. Thank you for your hard work.
            As a galley employee I do get the chance to see every person who works and lives at McMurdo. It's been fun so far trying to learn 1200 people's names and faces. I'm up to about 20 outside of galley staff, but I'm sure if I try.... I still won't do it. I have, however, learned the groups that come in and how they interact. There are GA's (general attendants who help with everything/ snow shoveler), Jano's (janitorial staff), Waisties (garbage sorters), and a huge number of other acronyms and nicknames that I can't remember or just don't get. The majority of the staff are all for keeping things running smoothly. When we first got here our traveling group had stuck together. Now that we have our working families the dynamics have changed, of course, and we catch ourselves saying "I haven't seen you forever, how's it going? I miss you." In reality I haven't seen this person since lunch and have only known them three weeks, but it is still nice to catch up.
            Always fun is watching the very eccentric, social people that make up the support staff mingling with the very direct and work oriented scientists and engineers. In a sea of crusty, overall wearing people it is hard to tell the difference. The lack of visual social cues makes it more entertaining. I'd compare it to a reality show pitch where the announcer says something like, "We're putting wild and crazy free spirits with specialized mechanics and engineers on a deserted island. What type of wacky, isolation induced shenanigans will happen next?" I'd watch it.
            It is part of federal regulation that the environment here be as untouched as possible. So for that, all of our jobs become a little more difficult and specialized then they would be at home. Every drop of liquid spilt outside has to be called in and completely removed, every piece of garbage has to be sorted into a seemingly infinite number of possibilities, and every attempt at energy conservation is implemented. This adds up to McMurdo recycling 65% of the solid waist we produce as well as everything being shipped off the continent and destroyed back in America. It also leads to limited showers and laundry washing, but as a food handler we are exempt from skipping, and even pushed to shower once a day and not reuse clothing. At first I thought this took the fun out of things, but after cleaning an industrial kitchen drain I'm super happy.
            My second job has allowed me to visit with the Mid-Rats. These are people working the midnight shift. Instead of bar tending at night, I have picked up the 6:30 am to 1pm shift on my day off. It is much more normal feeling then it should be to wake up so early to feed people drinks and go into bartender mode. When the sun never sets (the last sunset was last week) there really isn't proof of what time of day it really is. The patrons are very adamant about dimming the lights and making it feel as "divey" as possible. When my morning routine usually include silence and lack of communicating, it's a bit of a challenge to muster the energy to run around in a social frenzy and rock out to rock oldies. If you ever come to Antarctica I suggest if you smoke, quit. The smoking lounge is a shelter with a snow covered couch and frozen floor. It also requires you to go outside in the painfully bright day and freeze your butt off. Just a thought.

Hope you're all doing well. If you have any direct questions for me please don't be afraid to ask.

Till next time,
Chris