Full Timers And Company Housing

[ridgeline]

I worked for the taxable benefit place. Here's how it worked... Every month you would have $1000 put onto your pay check, get taxed on it, and have $1000 removed after taxes, E.I. etc. The house was nice.... but after it was renovated it had 10 bedrooms (very often all full) and 2 bathrooms. During the summer I was there the owner/operator imported/hired 5 mexicans (you can pay them less than minimum wage via some loophole, who also lived in the house sharing a bedroom and sleeping on the floor. There are reasons the front door there is a revolving one and its hard to find a Canadian accent in the place (housing is only one of them)

[hybrid]

I worked for the taxable benefit place. Here's how it worked... Every month you would have $1000 put onto your pay check, get taxed on it, and have $1000 removed after taxes, E.I. etc. The house was nice.... but after it was renovated it had 10 bedrooms (very often all full) and 2 bathrooms. During the summer I was there the owner/operator imported/hired 5 mexicans (you can pay them less than minimum wage via some loophole, who also lived in the house sharing a bedroom and sleeping on the floor. There are reasons the front door there is a revolving one and its hard to find a Canadian accent in the place (housing is only one of them)

Can you get good hours there? I think I might have found a pilot for them....

[shakey]

See! This is the type of company that would just simply go away if the Temp permits stopped being handed out. They would go away or they would have to tow the line and pay what all the good companies up there pay. It's just that simple folks.

[problemchild64]

All info is good, but I agree with Heli-Jimmy,....... you can always go home. It helps if possible to get a cheap sleeping bag & pillow from Walmart and leave in machine. Hard to do though in a Jet-box. Happy camping

[DGP]

As mentioned I can't believe this is still happening today in this industry.We all try to make the clients happy but really you got to draw the line somewhere.I could tell you all the ####holes that I stayed in for 20 years but its seems like everyone here could probably top me.Sleeping on the ground on a tarp under a jetbox in Alberta years ago and part of the hire requirements was pilot will bring their own tents,you all probably know who these people are.I haven't been back there since.One night and it was back to Ft.Mac and I told the ops mamagers at the company I was working for that they better put me on a plane out of there, which they did and then it was off to another ####hole which was no better.I spent a month in a supply tent with no floor,no door, snow blowing in the so called tent,no heat.Just about quit when I finally got home but oh yeah I still have a morgage to pay and a family to support.Well I don't work in the commercial business anymore but still at it.The last company I worked for commercially was told what I would and would not put up with.Never saw a tent or outdoor camping experience with them for the 4 years that I worked contract for them but also never saw very much of the family either.Seems like it is still the same old business.Everytime I get the idea of going back to the commercial world its threads like this that makes me say.... are you nuts.All the best to the new guys.

[freck]

I worked for the taxable benefit place. Here's how it worked... Every month you would have $1000 put onto your pay check, get taxed on it, and have $1000 removed after taxes, E.I. etc. The house was nice.... but after it was renovated it had 10 bedrooms (very often all full) and 2 bathrooms. During the summer I was there the owner/operator imported/hired 5 mexicans (you can pay them less than minimum wage via some loophole, who also lived in the house sharing a bedroom and sleeping on the floor. There are reasons the front door there is a revolving one and its hard to find a Canadian accent in the place (housing is only one of them)

I even heard that one of the foreigners caused so much strife that life was unbearable. What goes around comes around its a small industry. I never worked there myself but some of the stories are just amazing almost comedic.

[hybrid]

As mentioned I can't believe this is still happening today in this industry.We all try to make the clients happy but really you got to draw the line somewhere.I could tell you all the ####holes that I stayed in for 20 years but its seems like everyone here could probably top me.Sleeping on the ground on a tarp under a jetbox in Alberta years ago and part of the hire requirements was pilot will bring their own tents,you all probably know who these people are.I haven't been back there since.One night and it was back to Ft.Mac and I told the ops mamagers at the company I was working for that they better put me on a plane out of there, which they did and then it was off to another ####hole which was no better.I spent a month in a supply tent with no floor,no door, snow blowing in the so called tent,no heat.Just about quit when I finally got home but oh yeah I still have a morgage to pay and a family to support.Well I don't work in the commercial business anymore but still at it.The last company I worked for commercially was told what I would and would not put up with.Never saw a tent or outdoor camping experience with them for the 4 years that I worked contract for them but also never saw very much of the family either.Seems like it is still the same old business.Everytime I get the idea of going back to the commercial world its threads like this that makes me say.... are you nuts.All the best to the new guys.

Thanks for that post DGP. I think things have improved a bit since sleeping in tents in AB. I remember they put in their required equipment that pilots carry a sleeping bag and tent, that was in 2006. Our owner said don't bother, we will go somewhere else to fight fires.

 

Hopefully your posts, and others will make some pilots rethink their accepting sub-standard living conditions. Putting up with it to cream a few hours is short sighted.

[skullcap]

I guess each to their own on this but sometimes you have to do what you have to do. The word tent to most equals ooooh bad.

 

Last summer landed at a camp for a short 2 week stint. Food was great, showers great, nice people. Tent was not so great. Got the one I carry for such reasons, put it up and was happy,,,until idot with B3 landed too close in sand pit and blew zipper apart on tent. "I didn't like where you were landing, too many rocks". Ya no gd sand eroding the crap out of things....always two sides and can not expect the ritz every time. Next job for them was in a hotel,,,woo hoo,,,,no it sucked. Rather have a tent with good grub and good shower than crammed into some hotel with a bunch of unhappy noisy people anyday. The initial poster here has done an exceptional job of vaguebooking which seems to be the way of this site lately. Rant over.

[DGP]

getting off topic a bit,I think I have told the story of the tent I stayed in with BHP mining .It was better than a 5 star hotel.If you every work for those folks they are the best.On another tent topic I use to carry my own accomodations with me if going to a drill camp as they always put the pilot as close to the diesel generator as possible.So I set up my tent on the shore of the lake which you always are near fiquiring a nice quiet sleep.Well the wind comes up and the waves were breaking on the shore about 3 feet from the tent and I never got a wink of sleep from all the racket so I moved back in next to my friendly generator....you can't win!

[R0T0R]

Can anyone elaborate on how their companies housing works in remote areas?

This can include past and present situations.

 

I just want to gain a better understanding of how other operators go about

providing this benefit to their employees.

 

Cheers

Accommodations are not a benefit but a "cost of doing running a operation". There are good ones and bad one, we all know that there are some high maintenance drivers out there and there are also some very tolerant guys. The operator is perfectly capable of deciding is substandard living conditions is worth the cost saving when compared to training new employees. Jimmy is right, you can leave. I look at the place and decide whether I could live in a place for a week of weather days and still be well rested, warm and dry. I find that if the conditions are bad a good attitude will go a long way to finding a solution.

 

I have complained about accommodations in the past and was given a deadline for it's correction. The work was not being done so I started packing the ship....they put me in with the camp manager till the new building was erected....problem solved. I didn't yell or piss and moan. Actions sometimes speak louder than words and I have found that if you only complain when there is a real reason then people are more prone to listening. That being said you sometimes need to put up with a little s$*%. It is the helicopter industry after all...

 

R