Dead Bodies Buried Underneath the Floor in the Wild West
By Ellie Maier, CRM

Back in my downstream Oil and Gas days, I worked in 2 separate refineries on various records projects.  The first, an engineer had come to me, claiming “Hey little Missie, in my day we stored records underneath the floor” ….. to which I looked at him and was like “Hum, for real?  How is this even possible” but since he didn’t want to be the whistleblower, he said “Well you didn’t hear it from me”.  Intrigued, I came back to the corporate office and feverishly told my boss that “Yea, I heard they are burying dead bodies now underneath the floor at ……”  My boss, “Ellie, we know you are passionate about records and your job, but truly?  I think you have lost your marbles here”.  A year went by and at the time I kept going back to that refinery as they got enamored we the process of cleaning up old records and offices and I presented to the Executives every time I went on a visit.  The latest I added was the “Mystery stuff underneath the floor”, they all chuckled and were like, “Sure Ellie, you go girl, but that’s not possible.”  I found the engineer, we set off and went through all the safety procedures.  Armed in my nomex (protective clothes coverings), hardhat, gloves and safety goggles, we went to what was called a “Comfort Station” which is a small building for refinery staff to come inside and break from the elements of refining processes.  It took a suction cup, but sure enough, they removed the floor panel (a raised floor built for computer equipment) and sure enough….. our flashlights revealed 20 boxes underneath that floor.  Elated, we removed them, took them back to the admin office, and the attorney I worked with was always convinced during these expeditions that we would find a good lottery ticket or some money, alas all we found was disintegrated records, but we managed to salvage one book of important engineering specs and drawings that had been missing for years.

Many years later, in another refinery, on a very cold, rainy and windy day, we surveyed 200+ boxes all stored in an old lubricants kitchen no longer used and the glass had blown in from various hurricanes.  The boxes were tumbled, and these were meticulously indexed but never sent off to storage.  We had to almost break down the door to get in.  Lots of snakes and other vermin, so having steel toe boots was essential!  None of the boxes could be salvaged and it was that was my swan song refinery project and then I moved on and never touched or managed another box again  

Lessons Learned
Gain the trust of your colleagues by working collaboratively with them, as much as you can.  You never know when someone may come to you with some interesting info!  And by all means, once you go through all the pains of indexing stuff, don’t store it in abandoned buildings or other environmentally wrought places!!