Wednesday, May 11, 2011- No Heat, No Stove, No Hot Water, No Problem! (Inuvik Part 4)

Before moving to Inuvik, Northwest Territories, two of the more intriguing things that I worried about were what my living conditions were going to be like and what the hell did people do for entertainment around these here parts in the winter! Well my friends, I shall attempt to address these not-so-pressing questions, in this my final "introductory" blog to life above the Arctic Circle. Before moving up here, one of the "perks" of the job I was promised was my own one bedroom apartment, complete with all the furnishings that one could ask for. On top of this, my employer subsidizes half of our rent, so I thought it would be a pretty much straight forward winning session! Well this notion I had drummed up in my tiny brain was quickly shot down, as upon my arrival in the -30°C temperatures the first thing I managed to notice was that there were two service trucks outside of my new apartment. My boss casually informed me that they had been having some "issues" with the heating in the building. Not exactly the first thing you want to hear upon arrival in a place like Inuvik in early January, but my options for a place to live were pretty limited. With that in mind, I unpacked my two suitcases that possessed all of my worldly possessions and attempted to settle into my new apartment. Myself and the new apartment had issues right out of the gate. While the apartment was a fair-sized one bedroom apartment with a full kitchen and bathroom, it was apparent almost immediately that she (yes, my apartment is a female for all intensive purposes) and I would not always be seeing eye-to-eye. As I started to settle into the new pad, I quickly discovered that there were some issues with my apartment that were not going to be patched up anytime soon. First, was the aforementioned heating. Turns out there were some major heating issues throughout the whole building. Let me tell you, there is nothing at all appealing about having to watch TV with your full "outdoor" gear on, or sleep with your parka on. In addition to my heating that probably worked less than 20% of the time, I also had a oven that did not work and three out of the four burners on my stove were not working at times either. Factor in that my toilet also ran non-stop and my television was a complete piece of shit that made everything look like it was from a television show set on Mars and you have all the makings of a legendary apartment. Oh, and did I mention that my "fully furnished" kitchen came with exactly ZERO pieces of kitchenware. Not even a fuckin' spork I tell ya! Most of the problems with my apartment I came to live with, and I addressed the heating issue by purchasing a small space heater, which it turns out was a terrible idea as it was more than doubling my hydro bill and was mildly effective at best! Those first few weeks I must say I was definitely questioning what the hell I had gotten myself into. Luckily, things in the living department took a sudden change for the better... After surviving not only the coldest and darkest month of my life (we were getting at one point less than four hours of sunlight a day) I was randomly told one day that an apartment had opened up on the bottom floor of my building, which were considered the "premium" apartments as they were built in the last couple of years. A far cry from the apartments on the top two floors of the building which resembled the crack dens you might see in 70s blaxploitation films, shag carpeting and all. Since I had the worst apartment on the block, I was thus given the keys to a new place and let me tell you it was like night and day! While it had a very similar layout to my original apartment, it was far more modern, had a much larger bathroom, all new appliances, and even came with kitchen supplies! I must say, I have settled into my new apartment quite nicely, and having heat definitely doesn't hurt either. The only major problem with it is the fact that I often times have no hot water in my shower. Now I have done many things in my life that are pretty joyless (see: agreeing to let women pluck your eyebrows while intoxicated), but taking an ice cold shower when it's -40°C outside might definitely take the cake. I contemplated complaining about this, but given what I had just moved from I figured it was best to keep my pie hole shut. Having said all that, it is now the middle of May and I have settled in quite nicely, my hot water is not quite as fleeting as it once was and I can say my apartment actually feels a little bit like "my home" now. A touching story, I know. Now on to the more pressing issue of WHAT THE FUCK DO PEOPLE DO FOR ENTERTAINMENT IN INUVIK? While I wish I could tell you some romantic tale of me cooking moose meat by an open fire, but the reality is that our main source of entertainment up here revolves around drinking heavily and making asses out of ourselves (or is that just me?). The busiest spot in town on any given night is the only real bar/pub in town called "The Mad Trapper". If you ever want to see an eclectic crew on a dance floor, than this place is your kingdom. On any given night, you can see people as old as eighty working on their dance moves beside kids who are barely of legal age to drink. All this, while Lady Gaga or Eminem plays over the sound system, makes for some ridiculous moments to say the least. Add to this equation the fact that they have also have a cover band (they come up from the south and usually stay for about two months at a time) playing every night and my friend you've got yourself a proper venue for a nightly hoedown! As mentioned, the crowd at the "Trapper" as its affectionately known is very wide-ranging, with a good mix of locals and southerners alike and people of all ages, shapes, and colours. To say that I've had only a few rough nights there would be like Pamela Anderson saying she's only nibbled on a few wieners. The only other real social/drinking venue in town aside from the pub and the restaurant where I work is "Shivers Lounge", which is conveniently located right across the hallway from my place of employment in the ground floor of the Mackenzie Hotel. While I do go there on occasion, it's not usually to get loser pissed. It's the place to go when you want to watch the UFC pay-per-views or maybe just have a quieter/more reserved night. As it is quite expensive to drink up here at the bars (and at home for that matter) we usually have a pre-party at someone's apartment in our building. These are quite easy to bring together, as almost all of the restaurant staff live in the same building. We also used to have a good amount of after parties that would usually run until like 6:00am, but these have slowed down as of late due to noise complaints from other neighbours, that in turn leads to us being given final warnings before being evicted and thus having to go live at the Inuvik Homeless Shelter. While the shelter might make for some interesting stories, I'm not too keen to move in there just yet! Other than the aforementioned hobby of professional partying, most of my other past times generally tend to be the same as back home. I spend a lot of time stalking people on Facebook, watching TV, reading and when I feel really energetic, working out (sorry for the bad mental image ladies)! When I'm not working, I also tend to hang out with my friends a bit and occasionally some of the gentlemen arrange for a game of poker, which almost always involves me losing a nice chunk of my pay cheque. The only really "northern" winter activity I have experienced since being up here was that I got to go out snowmobiling a couple of times thanks to my boss being generous and letting me borrow one of his brand new sleds. I must say this was super-awesome fun, even if I did fall off the sled once going 60/mph and found myself doing multiple somersaults beside my sled as it drove away from me and witnessing my life flash before my eyes! Never one to be deterred by near death experiences, I forged on and had must say some of the scenery I saw in the bush surrounding Inuvik was some of the most spectacular I've seen anywhere! Aside from the sledding, I don't venture outside too often except to get from Point A to Point B using the old heel-toe express. I was supposed to go dog-sledding (the big touristy thing to do here in the winter), but ended up putting it off a bunch of times and will now wait for next winter until I try to tame the wild mutts. From here on out, I shall try to add a blog update as I see fit, which will probably be every few weeks unless something crazy happens that I feel I should document. Before that though I will first post a couple of blogs that will document my trip home in the month of April that will document amongst other things a bachelor party, rave, 4/20 rally, wedding, trip to Florida, and a bunch of other shenanigans. Thanks everyone for reading and be prepared....my next blog might be slightly ridiculous! Cheers, ~Brent~

Monday, May 9, 2011- If Only I Had The Balls To Kick Drunks Out. Wait, That's What Girls Are For! (Inuvik Part 3)

As is to be expected when dealing with one, Brent Moreau, I have become quite lazy over the last two and a half months and this has in turn led to a blog output of exactly zero. Now, I know that the world basically hinges on every single word I write, so with that in mind, let me get back to my tales of Arctic life. Well it would be nice to think that I came up to Inuvik just to check out the sites, the reality is that I am a man who possesses no financial wealth and therefore had to work. As previously mentioned, I was hired over the phone by way of an internet ad, so both my employer and myself were going to be in for a bit of a surprise. I knew that it was probably going to be a bit different than working as a waiter down south, as let's face it, restaurant clientele in Toronto varies slightly from that of a town that is currently buried under snow and twenty-one hours of daily sunlight in the middle of May. After settling into my apartment, I was immediately put to work the next day and proceeded to work a healthy amount of hours right of the gate which I think was most beneficial for getting back into the groove of things. One of the things that first struck me as amusing at the restaurant was the fact that almost everyone, and I mean everyone employed there was from somewhere other than Inuvik. Apparently I am not the only who thinks moving to one of the coldest and remote places in Canada is a novel idea. Of the eight people who are employed as servers/waiters, I am oddly the only who hails from the great province of Ontario. There are three girls from British Columbia, one from Nova Scotia, and another who is "local" but spent a chunk of her youth going to school in British Columbia. The other two male servers, consist of one dude from Quebec and a man is who is somewhat of a local legend by the name of Ernst, who claims to be 69 years old and hails from the beautiful alpine nation of Austria. Aside from Ernst, the other seven wait staff all fall between the ages of 20-30 years old and aside from the occasional melee at work, we all seem to get along pretty well. In addition to the wait staff, both of the managers/owners are from the Ottawa area and like the servers, the cooks seem to come from every corner of Canada as well. I think when it's all said and done, we have between 20-25 employees and to my knowledge there is only one person (a dishwasher) who is actually a true local. It's safe to say it's an interesting mix of people and we all somehow come together to make the restaurant function at a respectable level 95% of the time! (Yeah, we have our occasional days where shit hits the fan at about 150km/hour). As with any job that doesn't come with a guaranteed salary, I was obviously slightly worried about what my take home pay would be like. It's one thing to read numbers online that guesstimate what you are going to make in a month, but it's a completely different thing to actually have that money in front of you. One of the things that immediately appealed to me was the fact that at my new place of employment we did not have to pool our tips with the other staff. For those of you who have not worked in the service industry, this basically means that we get to keep whatever tips we make. Traditionally in most restaurants, you have to give anywhere from 1.5%-4.5% of your total sales amount to the restaurant at the end of the night, which they then divide up between the kitchen staff, hostesses, bus boys, etc. So for example, if I worked at Red Lobster (delicious!) and sold $1000 worth of food for the night, I could expect to hopefully make $150 in tips if everyone tipped me around 15%. At the end of the night, I would have to give $30 to the restaurant, assuming my tip out was set at 3%. So, while I may have generated $150 in tips, I would only go home with $120 of it. Having said all that though, our tip percentages on bills in Inuvik are generally lower than those found to the south, so it kind of works out to be about the same amounts anyways. Back home, you would generally be super-pissed off to ever see a tip below 12-13% on your bills. Up here, it is not uncommon for people to tip you nothing on bills. I can't even count the number of times I've had bills totaling hundreds of dollars and watched as the customer leaves you no gratuity, or if they're feeling generous a tip in the 1% range. When I first arrived up here, that kind of stuff used to really piss me off and anger me, but I quickly learned to laugh at it and just accept it as part of being an "Arctic Server"! Now, having said, there are a lot of people up here who are very generous with their tips and tip far better than 99% of the population to the south. At breakfast it is an almost daily occurrence where you will encounter someone who will tip you over 100% of the bill ($20 on a $9 bill is the common one). While, I may think these people are slightly crazy, it is genuinely appreciated, and really helps to offset all of the people who sit there and wait for their thirteen cents change! Having said all of that and without getting into monetary figures, in conclusion I am actually making more money on a monthly basis than I was told I would be when I was hired so I have no complaints. Now if only I could learn to unlove alcohol, gambling, and just general wasting of money, I might actually be able to save a little scratch while I'm up here! But seeing as how none of those are probably going to come to fruition, I guess I'll have to settle for having a good time instead! While the job is generally pretty uneventful and similar to serving anywhere else, there are definitely some moments up here that make me shake my head and wonder "what the fuck?" out loud! The most obvious thing in Inuvik that I can say I've never encountered on a regular basis before is the amount of heavily intoxicated people who come into the restaurant. It doesn't matter if its 8:00am on a Monday morning or 7:00pm on Friday night, people up here generally like to get fucked up! I can't even begin to count the number of drunks we have to refuse service to. Most of them tend to take the news okay and leave the restaurant without incident, although there are always some who won't go without a fight. I generally have a tough time kicking people out as I'm a pussy, so I often times will get my female coworkers to do the dirty work for me. Below is a quick list off of the top of my head of some of the more memorable customer experiences I can recall (both drunk and non-drunk) from my first four months serving up here: - I remember one incident where a heavily intoxicated gentleman decided to call one of my coworkers every name imaginable until she called the police to get him escorted off of the premises. Needless to say he wasn't one of the "happy drunks" and women don't like being called "c**ts" in front of other customers. - One guy was so drunk on a Tuesday morning, that after refusing him service, I let him use the bathroom and on the way out he got lost in the restaurant and couldn't find the entrance. Did I mention our restaurant is small and rectangular?! - I once had to help a homeless man out of the restaurant, as he was severely drunk. After aiding him up out of his chair by giving him a helping hand, I was told by a fellow worker to never touch that man's hands as it is apparently common knowledge that he frequently urinates all over himself and in particular his hands. Haha. - The strangest table I can recall was during Sunday brunch, when a family pulled me over to their table and asked me my name. After giving them my name, they asked if it was okay that they prayed for me. Not wanting to offend, I obliged and next thing I knew, I had six people holding hands in a circle in the middle of a busy Sunday brunch thanking Jesus for my awesome service! I just stood there like a tool not really sure what to do! - Sadly, my celebrity sightings in Inuvik are pretty limited and generally constitute serving the mayor and his cronies a couple of times a week. Other than that we have managed to serve a German film crew and a gospel choir group from Toronto. All rather fifth rate celebrities if I say so myself! - Lastly, this past Saturday I had three kids in their early twenties who were all heavily intoxicated come in for breakfast at about 8:00am who it appeared had been up all night drinking. One of the two girls basically asked me what I could "do for her" at the table. I told her that oral sex on the job is usually frowned upon by management. Shortly thereafter, the really drunk dude told me I looked like Jacob from "Twilight" to which I replied, "If I looked like Jacob from Twilight I'd be having a lot more luck with the ladies. You are clearly quite drunk my man!" They then proceeded to light up one of those fake cigarettes designed to help people quit smoking right in the middle of the restaurant floor! It was around this time that I just gave up... Although it may sound a bit nuts at times, I am genuinely enjoying working up here and all the characters make it that much more interesting. Despite my stories, most of the people here are pretty classy folks and cause no trouble at all. The work crew is pretty solid and I look forward to what should hopefully be a pretty busy summer season full of lots of tourists and locals alike. I'm sure there will be lots more stories of the interesting clientele that make Inuvik, well Inuvik! Good times all around. Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there and keep it classy people. ~Brent~