The best mining job I had

The best mining job I ever had was brutally cut short, I was recruited for a job that never eventuated although the role partially came through just as the whole structure was crumbling but not with the conditions promised.

What made the job was the team, I was surrounded by high quality individuals with a worldly knowledge that they brought to the organisation. Whilst I wasn't overawed by the depth of the team knowledge, I certainly appreciated being surrounded by such a strong knowledge base and I felt I could hold my own.

I was technically a Coordinator but was working as a Superintendent, I attended all the Superintendent meetings, signed documents to Superintendent level, made decisions to Superintendent level and stood in Superintendent positions when the incumbent was out on break.

As it turns out, after 8 months, the job was over and all western (white) expats were out with low-skilled and low-paid Chinese workers brought in to replace us. Non-western (non-white) expats were retained though, so only white people lost their jobs.

As the Chinese owned the company, I have no issue in answering to Chinese manager, I would hate to think I suffer from racist tendencies. I do have issues answering to incompetence and that is all I saw in the new management structure.

They were genuine idiots parachuted in place by the socialist Chinese hierarchy that had taken control of the company without any thought about how the place will run. We knew we were gone, even though they lied directly to us - they lack values.

The imported Chinese workers were lazy, unmotivated, low-skilled and lacked the necessary leadership abilities to make the project successful. They were totally clueless with fancy titles with no substance.

The national workforce were not fools, they saw the lack of commitment from the Chinese supervisors including their late starts, hour and a half lunch breaks and flagrant flouting of safety rules.

The Chinese technical knowledge was poor, the national engineering workforce was well aware that their knowledge and skills were at a higher level, so the nationals never respected their new Chinese supervisors.

I maintain contact with my national friends at TFM, they keep me informed about how the place is going and their concerns are real.