Story 3: First Week on the job.

THE FIRST WEEK.


Butch Harding, a name known by every person who ever worked at Mt Gunson in the 70's & 80's.
Foreman of the Mill, Butch also organised the mines football team, and kept most of the mill employees on the straight and narrow, although it was a good thing that sometimes the straight and narrow had a few bends.
Butch was head of the dedicated team who kept the mill running.

I showed up for work, my first day, new hard hat, fresh face and clean clothes.

Wearing clothes that had yet to experienced the black rain that persisted under the mill, or the thick black grease from a crusher change, or the accumulation of dirt, that, after a day or two simply cant be washed out. Yup! all the signs of being a new boy on the block. "Shit he even combed his hair" someone murmured.

I was introduced to the team one at a time then instantly forgot every name as I became overloaded by sounds, sights, people and everything else in the new surroundings.

This is Acky he will be looking after you. Butch said as a tall blonde chap stepped out to shake my hand, from the accent it was obvious he was Scandinavian.

We did a tour of the Mill, the floats and conveyors, finally ending up at the bottom of the primary crusher. Maybe every one starts here and works their way into the Mill building I thought, as we stopped alongside the wide conveyor taking the crushed rock up to another smaller crusher.
Acky pointed out an orange painted square on the ground a little off to one side, of the primary crusher, then three more forming a larger square.

"We", Acky went on want to shift the primary crusher control room from the back of the crusher and put it on a stand off to one side to stop it being constantly shaken apart and to make it a lot quieter for the crusher operator.
Your job is to dig four holes for the new foundations they measure 2ft 6" by 2ft 6" by 2ft 6" deep he explained. Also the ground here is mostly hard rock. We went off and found a pick and shovel and I set off chipping into the rock hard ground.

For two days I chipped my way down shoveling the broken rock onto a nearby heap, the going was painfully slow, but by the end of the second day with the four holes measuring exactly as instructed I stepped out.

Acky dropped by as I was packing up, he walked to each hole and appeared pleased with my effort, then informed me they had a jack hammer I could have used.

The next day I was quickly promoted to holding a hose and washing all the fines into a scavenger pump from a black rain that constantly fell from the overhead ball mill, for the next three days I was constantly wet and covered with black sand.