I can’t believe how much bitching there is about working in Fort Mac. If you don’t like it, go live on EI. —East coaster
This article appears in Dec 11-17, 2014.
Oil Field Lifestyle
Leave a comment
Subscribe to our newsletter
Be the first to know about breaking news, articles, and updates.
Think of how many people actually enjoy their job. I’d have to guess it’s a pretty slim ratio. For most, it’s a trade off – time, sweat, dignity in exchange for a semblance of a decent life.
So, out of all those Tom Choads heading for the promised land, are you all that surprised that most of them find only retards and bunny rabbits?
*Woo Hoo – Double Steinbeck reference. Suck on That, J@c*b B**n*
Let ’em Bitch.
I live here and have a great job, excellent benefits, a decent wage. I go to work in blackface and my co-workers just laugh. “Oh Mr. Meaty, we just love you!” Then we have a bean-flicking contest! EI be damned!
No Fool wouldn’t last a week up in dem oil fields. I hear it’s like a jail. No drinking, no weed, piss tests…. Phat coin tho. And free buffet food at da feedin’ trough, I could clean up on dat!
You can’t get EI if you quit your job.
Having to go out For Mac is a shitty shitty deal. Especially if you’re leaving family behind. The work is labour intensive, the days are long, it’s cold as fuck in the winter and it’s not like it’s a booming metropolis filled with dazzling exciting things to do.
People go to Fort Mac for the money, OB. Do you really think there’d be an exodus from here to there if they were only paying 12 bucks an hour? No, they go out there because the job market sucks here and there are well paying jobs out there. Simple as that.
If bitching about their shitty lives working their arse to the bone in Buttfuck, Nowhere gives them a little bit of happiness, who are you or I to begrudge that, OB?
They don’t want to go live on E.I because there are no jobs on Easter Island, just a bunch of statues staring stupidly out to sea.
Avatar #106: A $1 Note From The Union Bank dated 1838
A pleasure as always,
Cheerio!
some of them face inland http://explorethere.com/easter-island-head…
(vive la rapa nui libre!!)
If oil prices continue to plummet, Fort MacMuck’s Nova Scotian residents will begin the weary walk home.
The reality is that not all workers in Fort Mac are the stereotypical transient single people or family men flying back and forth from the Maritimes every few months. I know of families that have been there for 20 to 30 years. They’ve made their life there just like in any other town in Canada. Children are born there. And familes have lived there through previous ups and downs in the oil industry. The town isn’t going to disappear anytime soon.
I visited there recently and it was no different than visiting most small cities in Canada. It isn’t Dante’s inferno. It has decent people, a few nice restauarnts, and an amazing new recreation facility that would be the envy of any town.
Sure it’s a bit geographically isolated but no matter where you live it’s up to you to make the best of what’s available and try to find your crowd.
Fuck that place…. hard.
Can’t wait for oil prices to continue the steep decline and they piss and whine when they’re let go.
Set the stupid shantytown on fire and let it burn in hell.
There’s a weird myth that perpetually circulates around the Maritimes, particularly among the people who have never been “away”: it implies that *everyone* who moves to Ontario or Alberta hates every minute and is just pining away, counting the days until they can move back “home.” The media like to portray the most miserable experiences, and never seem to report on the thousands of people who move away and never look back. (Bad for “The Brand” I guess.)
While that may ring true for some people, it’s not the case for everyone who moves in search of a new life or new opportunity. Lots of people move to new places for different reasons, and they find they like it more than they expected, then they get settled, maybe meet someone, have a family, etc. Next thing you know, they are more happy and content in their new community than they ever would be back in their old home town.
What Chairman Meow said is absolutely true. Fort Mac has some rough sides, but there are many places in Canada far, far worse than Fort Mac. I lived there for 20 years–saw some bad stuff, but had mostly positive experiences, and met friends at school and work who are still an important part of my life, even though I now live in Halifax.
There are plusses and minuses to every place. It’s up to the individual person to make the most of their experience, wherever they live.