Posted on 01/23/2015 9:48:47 AM PST by thackney
So your off week is about over with. It went by too fast again and there is some work to be done before going back to the rig. You still need to do your laundry and pray that at least half of that oil base will come off this time in the wash. You still need to go food shopping - you know the usual grub: protein shakes, cold cuts, bread, eggs, steaks, etc. And, you need to fill up that darn 20+ gallon tank of gas for your 4x4 work truck that you're going to drive on your way across the lone star state to your remote rig location.
Finally you pull up on site and dig your tires through the mud to get up to the front gate, and once you look up you see the whole darn derrick is stacked with drill pipe. Ugh. You'll be trippin' in all day tomorrow. Oh well. That's what the job is. You can't avoid it. Trippin' in and trippin' out. Although, that darn directional motor breaks way more than it's supposed to and so you are always trippin'. It leads you to believe that someone isn't doing their job. Who knows?
You walk into your trailer shared by the other 9 guys operating the rig and you see that it's muddy and trashed and an ant colony has inhabited the kitchen sink. Screw it. You just want to get some sleep before your shift, which begins in 6 hours. You plop your Walmart-bought sheets onto the top bunk, adjust the thermostat to a solid 68 degrees, turn off the lights and quietly fall asleep.
30 minutes later you wake up sweating in your bed with the lights on. Your Motorman is shuffling through his toiletries in search of a tooth brush and talking on the phone with his ex-girlfriend in Spanglish and your Derrickman is sleeping on his back and snoring out a thunderstorm in the bottom bunk bed.
You get up out of bed to check the thermostat. Somebody thought 80 degrees would be a comfortable sleeping temperature. After resetting the temperature, you hit the lights again and jump back into bed kind of trying to wake up the derrick man so that he adjusts his snoring pattern. Ah! It may have worked. He stops snoring for 4 seconds before continuing his Macy's day parade of snoring below your bed.
The next morning you jump out of bed, because you slept 10 minutes past your alarm and frantically gather your warmest clothing and shovel a few protein bars down your throat, washing them down with some whole milk. The safety meeting kicks off in panic because your Toolpusher bursts through the door disgruntled and ashamed of your whole crew's performance. He blames you for the work that went on during your off week and says he expects better of you. The Toolpusher blurts out all the problems of the rig's current situation and the meeting ends without any solutions discussed. Your crew is confused about the objectives for the day. No safety is discussed.
Walking back up the tall stairs to the rig floor after a week off is always intimidating. You don't know what to expect. What is your relief going to tell you? What are these new problems that the Toolpusher was complaining about? Will the floor look different from last hitch?
You finally reach the last step, meet your relief, exchange a few words about the job and a quick, "ya, the off week went by too fast." and get back to working. Everything is the same. Things don't change. These vague problems that the Toolpusher poorly conveyed in the safety meeting are clear, repairable, and standard. As long as you're staying busy, those 12 hours on your feet will go by fast.
The oilfield teaches you to be independent. When your Driller needs you to tighten the bolts on the flow line to stop a leak in less than an hour, you need to think fast. You gather the diesel, grease, wire brush, rope, extra nuts and bolts, crescent and hammer wrenches, hammer, harness, lanyard and pipe wrench and get into the manlift that you aren't certified to drive and finish the job. You teach yourself to gather these tools and approach the problem the fastest way possible because time is money and your job. Working in freezing rain with 30 mph gusts will also teach you survival techniques. Your body needs a certain amount of hydration and calories to burn to sustain enough energy to perform these physical tasks and you learn this in the oilfield. With the job comes a real income and so you learn about financial independence - about saving and unfortunately more about spending money.
The oilfield also teaches you discipline. You turn a pipe wrench as fast as humanly possible while the Driller verbally harasses you over the loud speaker insulting your work ethic and manhood and you keep your mouth shut. You learn to ignore irrationality. Not much makes sense out there and why should it when your Derrickman rolls his eyes at you when you suggest wearing a respirator mask when mixing the toxic chemicals that state will cause asthma. Or your company policy is absolutely no smoking allowed on the work premises, however, they provide you with cigarette ashtray receptacles and sticker labels that you are supposed to tag onto the trailers that read, "smoking zone". You learn to take cold showers, because your crew members have already used up all the hot water, and you learn to cope with the fact that the oil base won't really come off of your skin until you get back home to scrub yourself for a half hour in your own hot shower.
Once you do finally pack up your things, throw your muddy coveralls in your truck bed, and scrounge the trailer's fridge for any good foods left behind, you drive home without much on your mind. It's a numbing job and your body's physical strain has stripped your mind of all creative thought. The drive is tough and you may have to sing along to some mainstream crap on the radio just to stay awake. You open your front door, drag yourself into your glorious hot shower and hit the sack right after. Your off week will be over soon. You can get some sleep for now, though, and maybe have a little fun with that fat paycheck.
And then there’s the “Ginsel”, the roughneck’s helper and then there’s the “Ginsel worm”, the “Ginsel’s” helper......................
“You turn a pipe wrench as fast as humanly possible while the Driller verbally harasses you over the loud speaker insulting your work ethic and manhood”
Boy! Does that bring back memories of my earlier years. However, back then the word SAFETY did not exist.
Being a roughneck is a thankless hard job. I really appreciated and enjoyed the article for it actually shows what it is like.
Roughnecking is not for “sissies” and you have to be strong both mentally and physically for fights are common and insults to your “manhood” and family lineage are a common language.
Trippin pipe on an oil rig is a rite of male passage back in my earlier days.
Back in the 80’s a favorite bumper sticker on oilfield equipment and vehicles went like this....”
“Don’t tell my mother I work in the oilfield. She thinks I play a piano in a whorehouse.”
I Loved it!
On my 8/2 WK schedule I once agreed to work 11 straight weeks to accommodate some desired schedule R&R by others. I quit 3 times during that stretch but got talked out of leaving before we could get a flight scheduled. Really tough at 5 weeks when I realized I had a full rotation left to go.
Big deal...I would have happily worked 7 x 7. I spent years on a 21 on and 9 off, (two travel days) in the Andes of South America and I lived in Chile. In Africa it was 45-days on and 18 off which included 4-travel days in the 18 off. Just finished a two-year job in Canada of 19 on and 7 off.
We would have laughed at a 7x7 schedule.
Back in the day..it was 28/28 Flying out of Texas to ME oilfields.
One Well I worked was 21 - 7 that just happened to sinc up with the X-Wifes cycle ... (the job only lasted 3 months) but I looked forward to going back to work those first two rotations.
TT
Mr. Cajun I had 35 years in the oilfields (southern cal )....it goes like this....the very lowest guy in the oilfields is call a WORM..BUT the worm has a helper that is soooo low he is called a ginsel. so there is no lower of a insult to be given than to be called a ginsel.
Worm = Newbie
Ginsel = Worm that screws up.
Ginsel Worm = Worm that screws up a lot (Lower rated than a regular Ginsel).
:)
I cannot comprehend how hard that must have been. When I started on the Slope in the mid-70’s most of the tradesmen (pipefitters, welders, etc.) worked 9/2. They’d leave for R&R with $80,000 in their pockets and come back two weeks later broke because they spent it all on booze and hookers. What a life!
Well, it did pay well...
I guess everyone sees it differently. 28/28 is the best job ever. It is really 30/26 with travel most of the time.
When you work you work. When you are off you are off and home. Time for six mini-vacations a year, time for real projects around the house, time to savor a coffee and conversation with the wife.
A well run staff house can be very comfortable. People who like to complain can always find something wrong. Every staff house I have run was a mess because nobody managed it. I have two primary rules in the house.... I tell the head man the only smells I want are Clorox and good food. I tell the troops if you don’l like the food bring some recipes from home and we’ll get them cooked. Nobody plans menus so we do that once a week. It helps the cook a lot and keeps down the grumbling about food. If we don’t have good beds we import them from the States. Everybody gets a room with his opposite and a lockable locker and the normal in-room entertainment plus the same in the common area. We give the staff Sunday off and eat out for dinner and free range for other meals on that day.
Working in the office, not so much. Weekends are for recovery. The commute can take half as much time as working. The office for engineers and many others in the oilfield has never been 8 to 5. More like 6A to 6, 7, or 8P. You get home in time to eat visit with the kids a bit and go to bed exhausted so you can get up and do it all again. I have gone weeks without seeing my home in the daylight except on the weekend. Weekends in drilling while in the office often go by without notice. There is either a problem or weekend duty and if not that the constant intrusion of phone or email for problems.
No, thanks, I’d rather have the rotation job than being a prisoner exiled from my own home that just becomes a place to sleep and eat a bit.
I’d rather live in my truck than a trailer as this guy describes. I’d figure out how to make that so before living in a pig sty like that. I hate camp jobs done off the cuff like he describes. They are nothing but a liability. You treat men like animals and they will work the same way. Sounds like he gets just what I describe.
I’ll never allow or ask a man to work more than 5 weeks out of 8 on a drilling operation. I been involved in too many incident investigations that involve the fifth week. I allowed a crew to talk me into a 35/35 rotation once since the flight time was so long. We ended it after four hitches.
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