I'm coming up on my concluding days of a three year contract in Fort McMurray, so I thought it'd be a clever thing to look back, take stock, and summarize the experience.

Mostly, in order to ensure that I never have to endure a similar experience ever again. I began this adventure in high spirits and with the best of intentions. I now leave with an utterly changed perspective on the world. On a deep level, I'm actually grateful - I want to live in the real world, even if it's not as pleasant. Discerning what's really out there from what I perceive to be out there is a difficult task, though. With luck and effort the experience will have drawn me a little closer to the mark.

So, what have I learned? Some of these are obvious, some not so. They aren't in any particular order.

Don't get into contracts that they are eager for. If you aren't negotiating, you aren't winning. Before, I used to think that net positive sum games were more common. No longer. They do exist, and they can be achieved, but if you want to come out net positive you've got to fight for it more. Don't assume they're going to throw you a bone - even if they're your friends. They aren't being objective, and the "benefit" they give you freely probably isn't nearly as beneficial to you as they thought it would be.

If Corporations are legally classified as people, they're very stupid people. Most Corporations up here change only when they have no choice in the matter, and then only to the minimum amount required. Solutions are of a "whatever gets the problem solved this minute" variety, with no thought to long term sustainability - even if long term sustainability is cheaper to implement. Formal training is treated with contempt. "Real" training is on the job, regardless of how many mistakes you actually make.

The Old Boys' Club is alive and well. The reason that many stupid Corporations are that way is because responsibility has very little to do with skill. I'd say that the Peter Principle is alive and well, but that's being too generous - at a certain point, incompetence won't bar you from further promotion. Who you know over what you know, indeed.

People can convince themselves that lead is gold pretty easily. I realize that I'm fairly naive in assuming the best of people, but it seems something of a general rule. People don't like to think that they're wasting their lives working for a company that doesn't actually care, so they convince themselves that the company *does* care. They take the letterhead slogan and internalize it.

The Emperor's New Clothes are magnificent - or else. If a manager convinces them self that lead is gold, as above (which is often the case), then any criticism is disloyalty. Even if your intentions are to improve things, there's no room for argument. Change is viewed with suspicion, unless it comes from the proper source.

Little things mean a lot. Big things, not so much. Know what has been the hardest drain on me up here? The traffic. Over a hundred thousand people packed into a town with one single two-lane highway - nevermind the constant flow of heavy haulers and work trucks. Half hour waits in line at the grocery store. Pathological fear of going within a block of the Wal-Mart. Not being able to go to the Timmy's for a coffee and donut because the drive through wraps out to the highway. The stressful Syncrude contracts were nothing. Getting cut off three times a day in traffic, that's what's done it to me.

Demand that you have rights to choose who you live with. My contract stipulated that my company would provide me with staff housing. The past three years, my various roomies have:

• Peed in the fridge at 2 in the afternoon (crisper drawer, specifically).
• ... and then remembered the incident the next day and found it funny instead of embarrassing.
• Slept naked on the living room couch
• ... well on until mid-day.
• Passed out (from pot) with pots on the stove at 1 AM, causing permanent smoke damage to the building and furniture
• ... three separate times.
• Run a pot grow-op out of the closet
• Destroyed a living room chair and set of stools. No idea how it happened.

... Man, that's depressing. I'm sure more has happened, but I must be blocking it out.

In any case, that's a first-glance look at My Life in the Oil Capital of North America over the past three years. I'm sure more will come up, and I'll post it when it does, but that's a pretty nice summary of things I will be paying attention to in the future.