I was surprised, no, panicked, when they gave me a stope to work on. “What was I supposed to do with this?” I wondered. “What did I know about design?”
What I expected was that someone would sit with me to show me the ropes. That didn’t happen. I was informed to pick at it. “How?” was the only thing that crossed my mind. Luckily, it wasn’t due to be mined for months. That might seem like a long time, but it wasn’t, not if you have no clue what you are doing. While I tried to figure that out, I was given a few driving layouts to polish and then design, then a few raise bore prints, then a few drill books. I can’t say that they were any good. In fact, knowing what I know now, I suspect they were horrible and likely riddled with errors.
They probably looked perfect on paper. But AutoCAD drawings have more depth than the thin sheet of paper printed. They are built with 3D wireframes. There are cavity surveys and previously blasted ground investigations to be carried out. Drill hole deviations to consider. Azimuths and grades and legal elevations. A bunch of technical stuff you probably don’t know about or give a damn about. Suffice it to say, I didn’t have a clue how to do the 3D stuff.
My skills improved. Baby steps. I got much better. But I was never happy with how I was trained. It was sporadic. It was inconsistent. I discovered that everyone did everything differently. Sometimes with good results, sometimes not. If not, then AutoCAD rebelled and crashed a lot. I inherited a couple that were not done well. Needless to say, they were difficult to work with; so difficult, in fact, that I deleted them and began anew.
It offended me that no one did things the same way. It offended me that some people’s drawings were a wireframe mess, that their layer management and naming were a mess, sometimes indecipherable. I had taken the time to figure out why my initial drawings were bad and I learned to do better. Why hadn’t they? Was it their training? If theirs was anything like mine, I wouldn’t doubt it. I decided to do something about that.
I began to write down what I did in a few word documents, do this and then do that documents, let’s call them manuals. One for block plans, one for driving layouts, one for raise bores, and one for drill books. Just as I was finishing them, I saw our newest student having the same problems I had. And she too was wandering from designer to designer, looking for guidance like I had.
“Try this,” I said, passing her a copy of my design notes. “Maybe this will help.”
It did. Within two weeks, she had completed a block plan and all the driving layouts and initial drill books.
I printed a number of copies and asked the other designers for input. I wasn’t an expert, after all. Manuals and procedures can only get better with feedback. And I was not so vain as to believe that the others didn’t have “tricks” that I didn’t and theirs might be better than mine.
I received no feedback. In fact, they each tossed my procedures aside and never
once looked at them. One even held up his hand and said, “I’m not fucking
interested.” That was unfortunate; he was one of two I believe needed the most
help. He had post-its everywhere to remind him how to do this or that, post-its
to remind him how to do everything. His drawings were a mess. Whenever I had to
pick up his slack, and I had to from time to time (he could never keep up,
always asking others how to do things even though he joined the group a year
before me), it would take me two to four hours to clean it up and set it right
before I could even begin, otherwise I’d never have been able to complete the
task given me.
I suppose they thought me arrogant, insinuating that I knew their job better
than they did when I’d only just begun. Maybe I was. I really don’t care. All I
knew is that my prints were easier to work with than theirs were. People in
other departments had told me so.
I informed my boss what I had done, asking if he might like to review it. He
was the head of Design, after all; it was his department; everything done ought
to be vetted through him, I believed. I thought he’d be pleased; he had always
said that everyone should do things the same way; he’d even tasked Dan Groleau
to teach us to do just that. That met with limited success. But Dan never wrote
anything down.
I don’t know what I expected. I wasn’t sucking up. I’ve never sucked up to any
boss. I just wanted everyone to be able to open the other’s drawings and not be
baffled by what I saw. I thought Gordon was of the same mind. Gordon told me
that he was looking for just such a project for the EITs in the group and
ordered me to give it them to do.
“But it’s done,” I said.
“They need a project,” he said, “and our boss wants me to light a fire under their asses and get them working, so give it to them. I’m sure they can take it and make it workable.”
Workable? Well, that was insulting. It was workable. Our student had already proved that.
I was pissed. Gordon hadn’t even looked at it and he wanted me to give it to another person to take credit for it. What did I expect? Praise? Probably. I’ve always been seeking approval, or one reason or another. It’s a failing, on my part.
Whatever. Gordon didn’t know how to use AutoCAD, so his input would have been irrelevant. He probably wouldn’t have had a clue about what I’d written, anyways.
I swallowed my pride. I gave electronic copies to the EITs. One did nothing with it. The other, Dave Lerikos, took the body of work and interpolated and extrapolated it. He added pictures to the word document, showing the toolbars and icons referenced. He added plan views and sectional views. In short, he made it better.
I’m thankful for that; I’m thankful that the document is still in use today.
Time passed. There were rumours of another strike at the Met Site. The Mine
decided to prepare for it.
A number of us were called into the boardroom, where we were informed by the
Chief Engineer that we were going to be trained in the operation of the Mill.
From that day forward, he said, all vacations were cancelled until further
notice, likely until the impending crisis was resolved.
“Does anyone have any holidays booked over the next month?” he asked.
I raised my hand. Everyone laughed.
“Oh,” he said, “when are they?”
“Tomorrow,” I said. Everyone laughed again.
“Are you going anywhere?”
“Alaska.” Everyone laughed again.
“I’m going to need some proof of that,” he said.
I printed off the emails I had for the invoice and itinerary and presented them to him. He looked at them long and hard before saying, “I guess I have to decide if I’m going to let you go or recompense you.”
My gut tightened. How could they cancel my holidays just like that? I’d spent $10,000 on it. It was bought and paid for. I was packed. I did not mention the cancellation insurance I’d purchased.
“Go,” he said, handing the emails back. “It’s only training. Take lots of pictures.”
I breathed a sigh of relief.
