Sunday, December 4, 2011

Bad weather.  Extremely high Chinook winds plagued the region bringing warm temperatures as high as the mid-50s, freeing rain, sleet, power failures,...  Power failures mean (to us) the electric companies will be shedding load and thus do not need their allotted fuel and that, in turn, means we and all the producers are busy recalculating production, transport and sales with several spreadsheets and emails involved in every change, however minor.  

Additionally, a roof unit blew over on Base, severing the fuel gas line, and freely spewing said gas for at least an hour, and a multi-unit apartment fire (with a fatality, I heard later), and intermittent breaks in SCADA communication due to winds buffeting our hilltop comm dishes.  I was literally swamped with work from the time I sat down at 0600 until just before night shift arrived at 1730.  Throughout the day, my paperwork was often grossly late, this a violation of contract.  I explained myself to the other companies involved, and logged comments into the department blog, explaining the lateness with a description of the day, situation, events, and reminder that the tardiness was ultimately due to having only one person to handle it all.  CMA.  This was not a particularly unusual shift.  The one saving grace:  at least the temperatures were moderate rather than severely cold as would be normal for December.  

Other than a flurry of revised spreadsheets exchanged at mid-day, the paperwork went quite smoothly.  That, in itself, was enough to keep me in a good mood; a mark, I think, of how stressful I find that aspect of the job.  Well, that and medication and more coffee than I should have ingested.  Still, I was upright and not even close to tears or rage when I arrived home, even having stopped to grab carry-out on the way.  Surprisingly, even with the high temps partially melting the ice and snow, then high winds polishing the new ice, with cars and trucks overturned along the highway and clear signs some of my neighbors had been off the side along our road, I still made it home unscathed.  Of course, it was “my” Friday, and that always takes a substantial emotional load off.