THE RECORD August 23, 1995

BACK TO THE EGG

Suzanne Trevis

I was sitting, this morning, in the very early hours, feeding the baby and quietly listening to the radio, when the announcer came on to tell us that a deal had fin-ally been reached over our paper machine. Fletcher Challenge is taking it Down Under.

I wasn't really surprised or even, I suppose, disappointed. After all this time I think I'd accepted the fact that it was gone, and most of the fallout has already happened. It did, though, make me a little sad.

I can still remember that summer, six years ago, starting work (?) after five months of interview after interview, test after test only to spend two very hot months in portables watching one training video after another, talking to every sales-man that came through the gate, and getting the "low down" from all the pulp machine veterans on "how things really were".

It was very educational (I am awesome at hearts!) and had at least one positive effect, we were all dying to start work! Once all the players decided we could actually take possession and start training for real, it got a lot more interesting.

Who could forget all those nights wandering around a still silent building, up and down hallways full of gleaming pipes, and long dim corridors of cold grey concrete, scaring each other to death because it was just so creepy. Bombing up and down the warehouse, sorry, driving around practicing our lift truck skills, and seeing how high we could stack uneven rolls of paper without a major mishap. (or getting caught by Andre!)

How about the "beach party" in the finishing room? Getting stuck in the elevator? Who remembers Warehouse Wanda? Recycling roll after roll after roll, for practice? Getting stuck in the elevator? Lost messages on the Majiq E-Mail? Con-vincing your boss you can do your job as well as the guy who's half your size? And hey, how many of you remember being stuck in the elevator?

The day we finally got to start making paper (or trying to!) I remember one afternoon a tonne of water cascading out of the press section like Niagara Falls, it looked a lot more dramatic than it turned out to be. The night we sat in the dry end control room and thought a freight train was coming through, only to find out later that we'd lost a press felt. How about the "snowball" fight half-way through trying to rescue said felt out of the repulper.

Can you remember your first view of a basement full of broke and being told you have the rest of the shift to clean it all up?!!! Wading through the basement with a hose and water up to your knees wondering when stores is going to get some boots in small enough for your feet? Watching pulp slowly ooze out the base-ment door like some kind of alien in a second rate sci-fi flick?

Okay, losing the start up pool because the guys laughed at us for picking dates like our kids birthdays etc. (so I didn't) and then the day we finally got a roll off the machine (November 22, 1989) it just happened to be my first wedding anniversary (which, incidentally, is paper!!!)

There are a lot of other mem-ories. The first time going up five stories of see-through grating (I have a problem with heights) and not wanting to look like a wimp. Not really realizing what the term "papercut" means until you have to work with the stuff twelve hours a day. Learning not to come up against a "spinning" roll. Going to Vancouver for my lift truck training and being the only women in a class full of men (sounds great except for the few with "attitudes"). Having to tell my super, after months of con-vincing him that women could handle things just as well as men, that I was pregnant ( we just about had fights over who got to watch that through the window!).

I know that once things settled into a routine it was just another job. And within the year I was off having a baby and things were never quite the same. But it was a time I won't forget, as I'm sure many of you won't. And apart from the impact it will have on the community, I'm very sorry to see it come to a permanent end