MY FIRST TURN AROUND COMES AND I’M GOING HOME

Part of the deal when accepting this assignment was that we would work 30 days in. Followed by, a two week break to our point of origin all paid for. Our hours were unlimited but we were paid during our time off. We received danger pay, a hardship allowance and a cash settlement for our travel, to wherever we were headed in our break times. The money was big and more than I had ever made on any assignment at that time.

If my memory is correct, I was paid (a lot) of USD each month that I was assigned to the Project. All taxes were paid. For a travel allowance I was given (a big chunk) of US cash each 30 days. With the assistance of a contract travel agent that we kept onsite. I was able to get from Kuwait to Calgary and return for about 1/3 of my allowance. So in 1991 this added up to quite a significant sum. It helped to ease some of the anxiety of working there. As we approached my thirty day period I became more and more excited. I had not had any communication with home. And they only knew that I had arrived in Kuwait after a call from the head office confirming it to them. Let me outta here I begged!

As it turned out, the plan for turnarounds was fine, it was just that the execution sucked. Because it was impossible to understand what kind of crap you would be in 30 days from your arrival. It was recognized that at 30 days, precisely, you may be involved in something that couldn’t wait for your return in 14 days. Therefore the “30” rule was made flexible to extend to “35” days with approval of a senior Project manager. That was it “no more than 35 days”. I decided I could live with that! And sure enough I was into something up to my neck when my 30 days approached.

Soon my tour was stretched to 35 days, the last 5 days on extra pay. No biggy right? Well, when I went to get my leave signed, so I could book my tickets. It was also apparent that I would not have completed what I had my group working on, in even 35 days. Well “too bad” I thought, rules are rules! Not so fast! I was then informed that through special dispensation. In case of “absolutely essential non-avoidable occurrences”, that with approval from the “Project Sponsor” a tour could be extended to 42 days. I know for sure that I was the first one subjected to this provision. Now I’m really feeling sorry for myself and whining mightily.

All this time Ol’ Bubbaloo back in Calgary was counting off the 30 days until I returned. The date comes and passes with no Jimbo and she starts to worry. At about 33 days she is convinced that I must be having too much fun there and that I don’t want to come home. Remember at this point all she knows is that I arrived and nothing else. On the 35th day I am given dispensation to use one of the satellite phones to call home. To try and explain, what was happening.

I was allowed one minute, so I had to state my piece and basically tell her we would speak on my arrival. I had to cut off the oncoming “storm” in mid question. The phone was needed and the satellite phones were restricted to business only calls. I hung up but felt the phone grow warm in my hand. I knew that I was somehow in big trouble.

Day 42 comes and I am going home! I am over the moon, I have survived and am free for 14 days. My only nagging concern was that now I have to face Ol Bubbaloo. Sure enough she has had an extra 7 days to work up a raging anger. She is pissed and cannot wait for me to arrive. There I come bopping out of the arrivals area in Calgary and there stand my 3 girls. The two smallest standing with their hands planted firmly on their hips, in an exact image of the bigger girl, their mother. In any event they appeared happy to see me.

With a frown on her face, Bubbaloo inspected me head to toe, checking for missing pieces or other evidence of damage. Finding none she grabbed firmly ahold of me and announced “well that’s it, you are not going back there, ever!” “You hear me?” She follows by saying “you Jimbo have a lot of explaining to do”. “Why do you want to make me worry so much”? I know that the whole war is now clearly my fault and there is little to say that is going to make any difference. At this point I am so happy to be home, that she could have put me on the “rack” and interrogated me as much as she wanted.

And question me she did. It was hard to explain what it was like, the fact that I could not (or any of the other 1000 guys) make a call from the 4 phones available. Her question was “don’t you know how worried I was?” There is no good way to answer that. She pulled every bit of information out of me that she could, yet remained firm in her stance that I was not going back there. I told her that was my job, “I don’t care” was her response, I then told her I would be jobless, “I don’t care” was another response, I told her they were counting on me, to this she said “HA, I still don’t care”.

I was not making any progress on my side. As a penance for staying away so long and making her worry so much, ol Bubbaloo did concede that If I bought her a brand new car to drive around in she would, at least, be a little happier. So armed with my pay, we went downtown and spent all of my first 42 days pay on her first new Ford Explorer. It helped but she still wasn’t allowing me to go back.

In the end it took a call from a senior level VP of the company, from San Fransisco, begging her to let me go, to tip the balance. He had to promise her to never, ever, ever keep her little Jimbo over his 30-35 day limit. I was so embarrassed that I could’ve crawled into a “shell” hole. Anyway my 14 days fly by and I was back on a plane, with my heart in my throat.

Editor’s note: I was one of hundreds of others that had their own traumas to deal with. Some much bigger than my own personal issues!