Let me start by saying that the main reason I came to Brazil was to stop working, so it only seems right that I spend sunday and monday under a 35 degreese sun dressed in Safety gear, loading and unloading a Diamond Wire cutting machine from one of Subsea 7 vessels.
You see, Achille is the MD of CUT-Brazil, so when he told me he had a bit of a test to run I said "sure!" problem is that Brazilians work at a rate which is rather different from what I was used to in the US, more like that of Norwegians but in a different way.
Achille explaining how to take Troy
Whilst in Norway people work hard but not for long because the government won't let them work offshore for over 2 weeks, here in Brazil people go offshore for 6 weeks at a time.
Tons you say? Well, yeah but lets put it this way, they don't kill themselves, at least not when in dock :P
In fact what is normally a 2 man job becomes a 8 man debating society. It's actually pretty interesting, everyone brainstorms, from the Head of Engineering to the welders, everyone talks over eachother and at the end, after quite a long time, something totally different is agreed since nobody really listens to eachother.
An example of this is the connections, usually we simply send a CAD drawing to the company and they provide the connections, but not here! 8 people stood (+myself and a scottish bloke to a side, no point overcrowding!) next to a machine, which only 1 person understood and tried to estimate how to connect it up.
Things do eventually get done, and I have to say, although things move slowly its a totally stress-free environment and everybody is smiling.
See today I realised something. Some guy yeaterday told me that there's no need to be rich in Brazil, only middle-class. I thought he was wrong but thinking about it, he's not.
See, most people start working their asses off to have a nice house, a nice car and so they can retire one day and have enough money to have a good life. But then they forget what the original objective was happyness and their objectie becomes making money which is really only a mean to happyness, so they're kinda fucked.
Here, you can lead a great life if you have an average income and that just sounds great for now :)
Anyway, all went well and we packed up the stuff and went home.
Wingardium leviosa!! (aka a really big guy pulling a chain)
Btw, anyone who thinks that Brazil is a machistic society has never been to Rio. There is a female to male ratio of 8 to 1 for some reason (I kid you not) and anywhere you go, including the manly world of offshore offices, there are way more women than men! Can't complain...
Oh, and I did actually do some work, I didn't only take photos of other people working...
Brazil Fun Facts #2 & #3
2. The Offshore Personal Protective Equipment for women is not a reinforced G-String :(
3. In Brazil the "Pierino" (Italy) or "Kerryman" (Irish) jokes, have Hugo Chavez as a subject :P
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