Working Nights

Two nights down, two to go. Tonight I am operating the truck scale at work, a job that I have never really done before. Ah yes, the night shift, some people prefer it even, those who get used to the darkness, never seeing the sun for months, sleeping during the day with blanket covered windows, ear plugs to block out the noise of traffic and children playing. Yes the night shift is different, but almost everyone working on site in this town has experienced it to some degree. Take Dave for example, one of our tennants at the Rosslyn Inn. He never worked a single day shift the entire 8 months or so he lived with us, and sometimes I'd go 2 or 3 weeks without even seeing him. When I'd leave for work in the morning he'd be on the bus coming home, and vise versa in the evening. It's a strange environment, this place of shift work and 24/7 construction. The plant sites, where all the tarsand is mined and processed into crude oil, never fully shut down. They're running 24/7 for 365 days a year! The plant site I'm on right now, CNRL, which is just under construction, is expected to produce oil for the next 75 years!! For the construction phase of this site alone they expect 4,000 workers by this summer, that's a lot of night shifts!