9 hours a day/ 6 days a week

For two days this week I sat at my new desk with nothing to do. The other drafter, James, did not get to town until Wednesday and he is the one who knows what needs to be done, essentially he'll be my supervisor. I looked at the town map many times to acquaint myself with all the different buildings and I met some folks who worked down the hall. Now that James is here, I finally have the real scoop on my job. Officially, I am the South Pole drafter and he is the McMurdo drafter. There is limited bed space at the Pole, as apparently they purposefully try to keep the population there as minimal as possible, and that is why I am actually stationed at McMurdo. But I will be headed to Pole, at least once, maybe more, depending on how much work needs to be done there. And if I need a break from that, James could head down there also. I will say more about the Pole later (apparently, lots of people try to make it down there), but when I am not at the Pole I will be working on projects in town. Basically, a lot of the town buildings (warehouses/shacks/trailers, etc.) were built awhile ago, in the 40's,50's, 70's, etc. The Navy used to operate this whole station until the last years of the century and I've been told that there are not a lot of good records for those buildings . There are also constant projects going on for remodeling, moving trailers, re-allocating space, etc. and sometimes the end result of a construction project is different from what was shown on the construction plans. This can happen anywhere, but in this environment, things need to move fast and materials and labor will vary. Improvising and working around conditions is reality. Our job as drafters is mostly to go back and make note of those changes, creating as-built drawings. There will be times when I will go around to different buildings (inside and out) and measure them and take notes and photos. Then I will draft them up and send them on to the Denver Raytheon HQ as they have a team there to some of the work also. I think this is pretty much what I expected, but I only thought there was a chance I would go to the Pole. The more people talk about really wanting to go there, the more I think it is a good idea. If I'm down here, I might as well.

on the way to work today... my work building ahead.

my desk in the drafting room

the drafting room