The 32nd Floor Twilight Zone

---

I was dreading going from a New Zealand summer to the heart of a Canadian winter. Especially because Christchurch had been having great weather, even reaching over 40 degrees celsius on an occasion, something usually unheard of in NZ. As I disembaked from the plane in Calgary I saw a couple of guys in full black, balaclavas and all and thought 'oh shit, terroists'. Turns out that they were just airport baggage staff. Working in temperatures as cold as minus fifty degrees celsius requires some warm clothing. I feel the cold, so was not looking forward to a long winter. Things weren't helped when I saw a news caption on an aiport tv saying a couple of homeless people had frozen to death over night.

The good thing about it being so cold in Canada is that the houses are built for it, unlike the student flats in NZ where you have to walk around in a sleeping bag and burn your funiture for warmth. When you do make trips out of the house you have to wear stacks of layers including long johns which are the sexiest things ever. The severeness of the cold depends on the wind. Without any wind it can be -20 and bearable. With a wind, the cold really hits you, you walk outside and start coughing, then your nose hairs and eyelashes start freezing. I would hate to have an outdoor job.

Speaking of work, due to the recession jobs had dried right up. I spent my first few weeks back registering at every job agency in the central city. Days of interviews, tests and computer assessments were rewarded when I got a call for a job at a large multinational oil and gas company called Talisman. It was novel for me because I was working in a skyscraper for the first time and was on the 32nd floor. The views stretched all the way to the rockies, so I often found myself staring out into the distance. The project I undertook was pretty difficult, trying to work between two departments who both didn't really want to be doing it. Highlights were talking to my supervisors Barry and Lisa about their travels. i.e. Not the work. On one occasion I went out for lunch and got lost in a myriad of malls under our building. I had forgotten that the building had two identical towers both over 40 stories high. I almost got into the wrong lifts. I would have taken the lifts up to the 32nd floor and gone to my desk to find someone else had thrown out all my stuff and completely taken over, I would have blamed it on the recession, gone home and turned to a life of crime or prostitution. Lucky I found the right lifts in the end.

My next job was with Sait, the local polytechnic college. I was working in the health, safety and wellness department undertaking a data entry project to record various equipment stored on campus. It was a great team to work in. They made me feel very welcome and I soon joined in on their antics. As part of a kit that the department were handing out were stress balls, so in the office we had loads and loads of boxes of them. Most people would squeeze them to relieve stress, not us, we would hurl them at each other, but they had to bounce of a wall first, so little yellow stress balls would be flying left, right and centre pinging off computer screens, knocking over anything in sight. I think all offices should make this mandatory. A big hi to Mark, Paul, Robert, Christie and Helen, hope the department hasn't fallen apart without me, ha ha.

Weekends during these cold months were often spent indoors watching sport on tv, playing darts or car racing games on the xbox. When we did get the courage to go outdoors we'd go to local parks for quick walks in the snow. Shit it was cold, I don't think I'll be up for another North American winter for a long time. It is novel to say you have been in temperatures as cold as minus 40, but when you are living and going to work in those temperatures everyday the novelty wears off.... fast.

(I've also included photos from my time at Skystone Engineering, cheers Argenis for sending them through)

---