McMurdo's Inner Workings: DA Style... What exactly do you do all day?

I’ve had some questions about what my day to day life is like here at McMurdo Station. Well, first and foremost I am here to work and support science. My job title is a Dining Attendant, DA, so that means I work in the kitchen/dining room serving meals and cleaning up after them.  I have worked both the evening and morning shifts here and been on a 5 ½ day and 6 day work week totaling 54 hours per week. The shifts are 2 meals each, either breakfast and lunch or lunch and dinner. There is also an overnight shift(nicknamed midrats) that serve a meal at midnight and breakfast. We also have the added challenge of working on the holidays so we get a random day off around Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years.

I was also selected to work out at the NASA/ Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility called the Long Duration Balloon site or LDB for short. My shifts there include about an hour and a half round trip of travel and serving and cleaning up from lunch served for about 45 people. This was a special honor, only 2 DAs work there at a time splitting the 6 day week. I was selected when Jean, my roommate, was promoted to a cook. Because I worked out there I received snowmobile training incase I needed to help with a launch. I also was film crew for the STO payload launches. Yes I said launches. There were multiple attempts before we had a successful launch.

What does a day in the life of a DA look like?

Well, I’m on mornings currently so I’ll describe an average day…

I wake up at 5 am, get myself ready and am downstairs by 5:20. Long commute! Remember I work in the same building as I live! I grab a bite to eat and am ready to work at 5:30. Our leads(aka supervisors) have a tasking sheet or schedule prepped for our days. Our time is broken up around meal times. Sometimes you work the whole meal period doing the same task, but often the meal is split in half. Then we have cleaning chores between meals and we do it all over again. We also have breaks through the day, as well as time for stretch breaks so we reduce the risk of repetitive motion injuries, and a few minutes to allocate or log what we did for the day for some HR type person somewhere to see and file away. So for example my 9 hour day(6 day schedule) might look like this…

Dishes from 5:30 to 6:30

Wash pots and pans from 6:30 to 8

Half hour break

Cleaning chore for an hour and a half

Stretch break for 15 minutes, allocate for 10 minutes

Family meal where all the cooks and DAs eat before we serve the meal

Restock the hot food(aka line) for 2.5 hours

Stretch again for 15 min

Half hour break

Cleaning chore for 1 hour 15 min

After work I generally relax and play on the computer, work out, or nap then shower and go eat dinner. My evenings are filled with things like travel talks, science lectures, tours, movies, dances, hikes, etc.

My day off has been Sundays which allows me to go out on Saturday nights(our big night out due to the 6 day work week). I enjoy Sunday brunch with my Vermont Maple Syrup, do laundry, call home, catch up on computer stuff, etc.