20th January 2010, 06:29 PM
med Wrote:When cold weather strikes (well below freezing) and a crew is on survey - sometimes when it takes hiking over rough terrain to access a work area of hundreds or thousands of acres - "welfare units" are not possible
Anyone who goes hiking over "rough terrain" in the kind of extreme conditions described in the first post deserves what's coming to them if they don't go prepared, and I'm doubting there are many people doing that for weeks or months at a time. If that IS the case then I think you can call it an expedition, and as you appear to infer, it doesn't really happen in the UK - where you'd simply put it off until the weather was less life threatening. Hiking over rough terrain is also enjoyable - its not exactly what I think the original point was, but I'm sure you're aware of that as your post appears quite tongue in cheek. I go mountain hiking in winter for fun. I don't go and stand in the freezing cold and shitty weather trying to break frozen ground with a mattock for hours at a time .... for fun.
However, I've found it's often been the case (not aimed at yourself med as I'm making no presumptions) that people who dismiss complaints about adverse conditions (whether weather:face-huh:, pay or whatever) tend to be people who don't spend every single day of their working lives outdoors with a shovel in their hands. Some maybe used to, but now have found a comfy office job where they only sometimes have to go out on a survey or site visit, and find themselves able and more worryingly willing to inflict this upon others.
At the end of the day being a site assistant is a tough job which takes it out of you physically and mentally, and anyone who can't cope with British weather shouldn't be doing it - but there are limits. There are also ways to improve such working conditions, but there won't be any improvements on a large scale until acceptable limits to the kinds of site-endurance that's the subject of this discussion are formally recognised.