First week of work! I live about a 20 minute walk, or 5 minute drive/bike ride from work. (I don’t have the bike yet, but I’m working on it.) We girls get picked up every morning at 7:50 AM to make it to our morning meeting at 8 AM. I LOVE working so much closer to work. None of this 30 minute commute like in Perth. Right now, space is a little tight, so Tiffany and I share a desk, and with Nic coming in a few days, it’s going to be interesting. The operators, my boss Sebastian, his boss Rob, and the others all seem like a nice group. No complaints thus far. I started working right away on a TLD calibration (yeah radioactive sources!), and unfortunately the darn thing failed. Sigh. Not a great start to my career here, but at least it wasn’t my fault. I started working on a job for Thursday with Tim (which then got pushed back to Friday, this happens all the time), which involved a Sonic Scanner tool – something brand new to me! I’m basically going to run the job when it happens, and Tim is going to make sure I don’t screw things up. We got that tool string finally up and running on Wednesday – after some difficulties on my part and on the part of the tool. (Stupid, stupid different versions of software!)
The senior engineers are Tim, Danielle, Rahim (nickname Reme), Nic M, and Marcos. Nic M has whooping cough of all things, and thank goodness he’s off on sick leave. Tim is leaving and taking another job in June. All the others seem very chill and nice. My boss Sebastian is Argentinean and a right nice fellow. He really wants things to be done by the book, and I’ll try to accommodate that. New engineers are Tiffany, Callan, Nic, and myself. There should be a few more coming as they return from school. Nic lives just a little ways off, and it’s really nice to have a familiar place around here. Tiffany and Tamara are pretty easy to live with, thus far the only problem has been a dead mouse on the patio. (Apparently when Queensland flooded, there was a giant mouse migration into houses – no surprise really. So far, that’s the only one we’ve seen.) We have a big back yard – not that I think we’ll have time to utilize it. It’s pretty Spartan at this point, but I’m hoping to liven it up a bit. I’ve been working 11-12 hours a day, so I haven’t had a lot of time to explore what little there is of Roma. Tiffany and I went and got some groceries, and I’m about a 20 minute walk from the heart of town. Not really too bad, the moon and stars light up my path as I walk. The stars are awesome! I really wish I had my star chart from home; I’m thinking I need to just go buy one here. I have felt like crap since I got to Roma – hopefully this is just the travel and time adjustment. I’ve been sleeping 9-10 hours a night to try to work it off. I finally got Skype in our house!!! Granted, this +14 hours from Eastern time is a bit tricky, but I’ll try and hook up with people.
Overall opinion of Australia thus far is positive. The people seem relatively nice, Roma is an okay city, and my workplace is stressful and challenging, but people tend to take it easy – as in they’re chill. Hopefully it stays that way. My goal this week was to get sleep, eat healthy, and figure out my life at work. Next week is to go to a non-Schlumberger sponsored event and meet an Australian not associated with Schlumberger! I might go to a Katie Perry concert in Brisbane, depending on how the girl’s schedule works out – girl’s night out all the way!! I’m set to go on a job starting Friday morning, so I’ll report back after that. Its north of Miles, Australia in the bush, and is my very first Wireline job. Hopefully it goes well.
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