I don't know how fair that comparison is though. Think of the bigger picture.
Civilian workplaces don't:
-call you at 5am and tell you to be at work for 6. Got kids? Drop em off at a neighbor's.
It was usually no jobs until next week. Then bam 1am call to be at work on the road by 3am location for 5am. Work 36hrs back the barn and repeat.
-order you to stay late after work, use your emergency family care plan to get your kids.
Always worked late in the Oil patch. No GAFs given by the employer. if you didn't like it there's the door.
-tell you you're being sent across the country for 3 months with a weeks notice.
I did not experience this myself but I had friends who worked over seas with a month on month off contract. If your relief did not show up you didn't go home. More then a few guys would work for a few months then come home.
-cancel your vacation last minute and jerk you around if you try and get compensated for canceled airfare or hotels.
Regular occurrence in the Oilfield. You worked when the work was there and took time off when it allowed. Especially worse when you work for a smaller company and your the Lead Operator/ Supervisor. You sitting on a beach in sunny Mexico meant your crew did not go to work.
-have the ability to put you in jail if you don't show up for work.
Fined, charged/jail for driving over weight, over hour'd, wrong paper work, wrong certs for equipment, one of your workers blows something up and injures someone.(no choice over who gets hired).
-force multiple jobs on you and make you work at a higher-ranked position without compensation.
Yup Worked as a lead hand, told to fire the supervisor if I felt he wasn't the right fit. Money talks and BS walks. Often I would be on a job as a Senior Hand/ Lead Operator and calling the shots as the Supervisor was out to lunch, inexperienced , so frazzled and or walked off the job. Rarely would you see the pay, sometimes you did. At the end of the day it meant the rest of the crew continued to work so it meant their families got to eat. I did the best job I could to keep things going.
I also don't think your civilian work has ever ordered you to pick up cigarette butts, garbage, or branches around your building.
LOL, how about mowing lawns, washing other operators trucks and equipment full of mud and garbage, cleaning drainage ditches, scrape paint with a 2 inch scraper for a object the size of a building, then paint it with a similar sized brush, climb scetchy ladders, run equipment that should have been in the scrap yard 20 years ago held together by bailing twine and duct tape.
No other workplace in Canada has the same control over its employees that the CAF does. Vacation days are on a different level for CAF members IMO.
LOL. you never worked the oilfield or heavy construction.
