Tradie Day

One of the things I have always loved about operational roles is that I can leave my office and find someone doing something way more interesting than emails. I find it super energising and educational so its the first thing I do if I’m lacking enthusiasm for my own work.  

Antarctic Summer was such a whirlwind of activity and together with my newness the time went by so quickly.  I had very little to do with the trades team during the day other than crossing paths at meals. So with some extra time during the day, a thirst for learning and the realisation that I will likely never get this opportunity again I kicked off ‘tradie day’.  

So I rolled out my very new and shiny hi-vis shirt and my hard yakka pants and joined Tristan our resident boiler maker for the day.  I learnt that while things might look simple in the finished form they can take quite a bit of time and effort to measure, design and set up before finally drilling the holes we needed.  I’m a little embarrassed to say that I really had no idea what a boiler maker did before coming here but as it turns out quite a handy trade to have around.

Next up I spent the day with Bob and Sacha in the waste water treatment plant basically cleaning out poo.  I had such a lovely day with these characters who are quite entertaining with never ending dad jokes and clearly enjoy each others company who also happen to be pretty good at their job. While I couldn’t get into the small space, as I’m not trained, I helped with what I could which was cleaning poo out of filters. Bob was somewhat impressed as he reflected that I didn’t complain once!! 

Sparkie day was a little more challenging as I couldn’t really do too much outside mop the floor under the oven they were fixing and attempt to vaguely understand the workings of our electrical system.  I learnt that sparkies are the cleanest trade and perhaps the most difficult for my brain to understand but I enjoyed my time watching Will and Hayden troubleshoot the oven and learnt a little bit about our RMU’s (ring mains unit).  Sadly I didn’t get any photos of the day…..so just a couple of random social sparkie photos. I’m yet to spend time quality tradie time with the other 2 talented sparkies Matt and Dave but plenty of time for that.  

As we all expected Dieso day was well planned and executed with Stu who I have learnt is quite a good teacher and has a lot of patience, at least for me.  I did a service, heavily supervised, on one of our 4 generators who are named after the Beatles, Paul, Ringo, John and George.  I even received a certificate complete with the Director (fake) signature.  I learnt how to use use a bunch of tools including a rachet and will always remember lefty loosy righty tighty. I also had no idea that a magnet was so useful but seems I’m not the first person to drop something through a grate to a drain.  

Jamie our lovely and only Chippy is in high demand and not only hosted me for tradie day but also helped me (and others)  make our mid-winters gift.  Open shelving is everywhere on station and for those that know me know that drives me crazy!  All I wanted was a drawer to put some of the crap away so Jamie and I built it on tradie day.  Unfortunately I can’t put the battery chargers in there as I thought – damn sparkies and their safety rules 🙂 but at least I can put pen and paper in there so a small win.  

I spent a day with Lee our Engineering Supervisor who is also a boiler maker by trade and did some welding while Tristan was away to improve our blizz lines.  Such a fun thing to do and definitely not as easy as it looks.  But left my calling card for Tristan in case he needs my help in future.

Last but by no means least I spent the day with Scotty and Garv our other two plumbers.  Again I mostly looked on and cleaned up a little but was impressed with their enthusiasm to get the job done and do it well. Common theme of things that look simple are simply not!! Finding the right fittings, cutting the length of screws and using ratchet straps to create space to put a valve in that is 10mm bigger than the last one all takes time but the job is now done and it looks great.   

While I’m proud to say that my hi-vis is getting a little dirty I’m definitely not finished with tradie day and looking forward to a few more days hanging with these talented and entertaining people.  I haven’t spent nearly enough time with the electrical team and I’m looking forward to being involved in building the ski landing area on the sea ice with Codey and Tim in the new groomers.

Huge thanks to everyone for hosting me I enjoyed every minute!!! and would happily be your apprentice if you’ll have me.