Bibbip bibbip, its 6.17am and this is the fifth time I’ve pressed snooze, so I slither out of bed. More like an eel than a snake as although its 6.17am its 30 degrees in my unit, a sauna on stilts, a 90’s attempt at the “Queenslander”. I farewell my bed from the right hand side (for fear of bad luck), get dressed and turn the air conditioner above my bed to a cool 16 degrees. Then I turn the two in the lounge room on, and yes it’s absolutely necessary even though we’ve only just welcomed summer. By the time I leave for work I’ve fed no less than five stray cats and averted disaster. A none too overstated cat fight between Bendy and Old Man, where the fur would have flown (as it has before), great tuffs of it, almost literally. 

Normally I leave home by 7am and this morning is not abnormal yet, but as I pull out onto the road I notice the driveway across the road. Aligned in the gutter below my boss Warren’s seven foot uncapped cream colour bond fence is a group of hap hazardous indigenous Australians. Otherwise known as my Field Assistants. “What’s going on?” I quiz them. And then “Where’s the bus?” I probably should have asked where the bus driver was instead, the one that ferries 12 or so Field Assistants 15 kilometres to work and back each day. It was pretty bloody obvious where the bus was, still parked-up in the office yard.

It would seem that the weekend bus driver, Robbie, had not shown up so the three of them joined me as we went on an adults treasure hunt of sorts. Seeking out who was coming to work that day in light of the events of the previous night (a funeral of an elder, if you’ve ever inhabited a town with a large indigenous population… you will get the picture), first stop Bevan’s.

We arrive at Bevan’s and I get out of the car secure in the knowledge that this man is likely to live up to his bogan namesake. Eighties techno music vibrates up the street as I knock on the door of his ground floor unit. Bevan opens the door, rake thin, straggly hair, blue singlet, denim jeans. He looks a lot like Mick Jagger after a month of late nights, only ten inches shorter and ten kilos lighter. I inadvertently give him the once up and down, my eyes settling on the can of VB in his hand. He tells me he can’t go to work as he has started drinking again. The truth is he probably didn’t stop.

Next stop is the absent drivers home, Robbie, himself. The funeral was for a family member quite close to him (all my Field Assistants were in some way related) but I’m still more than a little surprised when I walk up to the door to find a dozen or so bodies strewn around the lounge room floor, sunk deep and motionless within the piles of the carpet. After knocking loudly several times Robbie’s Mum comes to the door. She’s dressed in the previous day’s attire, a blue floral number straight from the 50’s, out of Driving Miss Daisy if you like but without the white gloves. She goes to wake up Robbie but returns shaking her head, she can’t wake him, he won’t even stir.

I give up on Robbie and head round to Toms place. Beautiful Tom. I scoffed at Warren when he hired him. At 50 plus in age Warren had raved about his virtues for he had been a security guard so must be fit and suitable for the job. Warren informed me that I was to put him on one of the RC drill rigs as a Driller’s Offsider. The physically hardest position in mining it is possibly even one of the hardest, dirtiest and most dangerous jobs one can do. A position where it’s not uncommon to witness Offsiders running between drill rods if the drilling conditions are good. Tom was revered in my world, OK yes he was 50 or so, but he was also Arthur’s younger brother. Another beautiful old Field Assistant who, although moved at snails pace, was an old timer who had worked the site as a youngster when they were removing native copper by hand.

We finally arrive at site, alas 60 minutes late and six Field Assistants down. But that’s a sublime statistic compared to the previous weekend when just two bothered to turn up. I had arrived out at site a little late that morning (incidentally there had been a major cat fight in the living room) to find just Brownie and Tom at two of the three RC rigs. After the rig moral of babysitting the Director Warren (this typically involved him phoning me with the expectation that I drop everything to lookup some random drilling result… and can happen countless times throughout a day), I’d raced out to the drill rigs to find just Brownie and Tom. One with one eye, the other with one leg (which had to be wooden judging by the way he limped). Both unable to legally drive. Glad that we were still drilling, I daren’t not ask the question.

I fly back to the office. One of the RC rigs has just completed a hole that was unexpectedly unexceptional. I need to move it elsewhere ASAP to a hole that will hit copper, hit something. Otherwise I risk Warren getting all antsy, which is not nice for anyone. My hearts skipping along with the adrenalin as I scan all the data, down hole sections, cross sections, and assay results… to figure out the next perfect drill hole when the radio crackles…

“…got a copy…, “… got a copy”.  The frustration rises in the voice as I rush to the radio, if I don’t answer it by the third request there will be a scene. An initial unseen rant and rave to whoever is next to him in the office at the time and then a dig at me later for ignoring him on the radio. Its Warren of course, it always is. And he’s after me, he always is. And as per usual he is cutting himself off on the radio, talking before the receiver has been pressed properly and cutting my name off. What he means is “Wendy, got a copy”. What it also means is that my heart skips a beat, he wants me to ring him, so I do, and as is the usual case he wants me to look up the file of a certain drill hole. “Hey gorg, how are things?” I give him the abridged version, as long as we are hitting copper he is happy and five out of six rigs ain’t bad. Then he launches into the following atypical diatribe all the time my head is still racing through the planning of the next drill hole. “Now have you seen FWRC102? It was an absolute cracker, have you seen it?” Now I reckon we should drill a hole in front of FWRC102 and next to WBRC506 and you’ll hit it again, right in front…” With almost 10,000 drill holes on site it never ceased to amaze me how he remembered each one… and how he expected everyone else to as well. “Alright then… Ill be out later… OK gorg… I’ve gotta go”.

I’m up at the desk now perusing the plan, I’ve almost got it figured out and the drill crew will be close to having all the rods pulled out of the hole. I’ve got probably five minutes grace so I update the drill hole summary spreadsheet I set up to keep track the thousands of metres we drill each week, when the radio crackles again. This time it’s my Kiwi 2IC Mike with his unmistakable winey voice. Warren hated him when I first arrived but for me he was the best of a bad bunch. And although he never showed the strength in leadership to manage an exploration site of this size, he always showed the computer know-how. Mike always offered “the main difference between Kiwis and Aussies is that Kiwis have no passion”. Well he was proving his point this particular day and add to the list lack of inventiveness. There was already a Geologist (well Geographer… but that’s another story) on the rig and he was now out there at Payney’s rig too as apparently there was too much water. In his churlish manner he is telling me that Payney is refusing to drill. I hang up the receiver, grab my water bottle and hard hat and am out the door when there’s a crackle on the radio. “… got a copy”. And then “Wendy…. Wendy…, give us a call will ya?”

I call Warren at the office in town and he tells me that the head of Sorros Fund, owned by George Sorros the third wealthiest man in the world, will be visiting site today. I take a deep breath and act cool, it was the worst part of my job entertaining the guests and some days we would have up to four groups of investors come through. It’s just not in my nature to boast and brag about anything but particulaly a drill site, and I’ve never been any good at sucking up to anyone. In fact a Mine Manager once told me “Wendy… you know the thing I like most about you… is that you take the piss out of anyone… regardless of who they are”. Yep that’s me, I thought, doing my bit for society… keeping everyone well grounded. I ask Warren if they are coming from the Cloncurry office as they usually stop there first. “No, he’s coming direct to site”. “Ok Warren, so when will he be here?” “He’s on his way”…. in a chopper”.

I race out to Payney’s rig and find Lake Eyre during a wet year plus a Driller and two Offsiders resting up against their vehicle, quite content to do nothing. RC rigs usually charge about $30 a metre drilled but they also have a myriad of side charges such as active and inactive down time. Active if I or the Geologist prevents them from drilling. The rate in recent years can be as much as $600 an hour and beyond (If you are not in the mining industry and didn’t grasp that figure, you should have. It will help you realise that there’s certain etiquette amongst Geologists. Never leave a driller waiting).

My 2IC Mike launches into the full story, his account of how he dealt with the situation (which clearly has not been dealt with) exemplifies the fact that all the Geologists on site found it near impossible to make a decision. And if we ever hired a good one that could they would inevitably leave, refusing to put up with the notorious insults and antics of Warren. He clearly had no understanding of the average Aussie bloke and most shockingly in the middle of his disagreement with Payney was going to walk up to him with a box of tissues and tell him to “go have a cry”. I can’t believe it “Are you fucking crazy… you say that and he will punch your lights out”. It turns out Mike wasn’t crazy, just plain stupid. He didn’t get his lights punched out that day and I convinced the Driller it was in his best interest to keep drilling.

I speed back to the office 60 kilometres an hour on the same roads I personally induct newcomers to drive 30 kilometres and hour on. There is too much to do and the handset from the phone is still warm after a call to the lab when Kate walks in. A lesbian DJ, Kate is one of my more charismatic Field Assistants, but today she is miserable and in my office unable to make eye contact. Her Mother recently ditched her Father and he is now threatening to kill himself. This was to be the first of many days Kate would arrive in my office in tears or not arrive to work at all. Without questioning myself without questioning my abilities I set aside the business of finding copper and talk with Kate. These counselling sessions were such a regular occurrence with my Field Assistants (though none as serious as this) that it had led me one day to put a sign up on my door that read “Counselling Sessions $200 an hour (you cant afford it)”.

Kate is temporarily consoled and I go to the crib room to retrieve my lunch which I will then forget to eat, and return to my office. The radio crackles again and it’s Warren but this times he’s demanding someone else’s attention. The secretary. We finally have a new one after weeks without. Weeks of me managing or being Chief Geologist, whatever they feel like calling me on the day, and answering all the calls and attending to all the paperwork as well. The new secretary is fresh from India and Warren is asking him about an order that was made last week, thankfully I was on R & R. Our sorry Indian is stuttering, lost and confused, clearly judging by his response he had not yet figured out that perfect flavour for charming Warren, who after quizzing him a couple of times was becoming increasing infuriated. After one minute of questioning between two seemingly different languages, Warren with an audience of Geologists, Field Assistants, Drill Crews and any other Farmer in the vicinity that happened to be listening to UHF channel 6 says “Listen here you good for nothin curry munching stupid fucking prick… what in the fuck have you done with the friging order”. Mike walked into my office five seconds later to find me hunched over my desk frozen in pose… mid cringe.

NB I can clearly go on and on with the stories from work. These last 2329 words are purely a dust particle on the tip of the iceberg. Ill wait for your feedback and perhaps do a Part III… or that failing write a novel.