Update

The purpose of this post is to provide a normal last post for anyone that happens to come across this blog. Or maybe it's just closure for myself. I quit my job a few months after my last post and went to work at the National Science Foundation. It's a two year position, and while it's often boring, boring is a welcome change from my last position. After working in the oilfield, being able to come home every night to a bed which isn't a bunk bed and to a man that isn't a co-worker is a luxury. While I sometimes miss being tough and bad ass, I'm happy now.

Diary entries

01:05

My french fries taste funny. I wonder why for a split second and then look down to see that my fingers are almost black with dirt or grime or grease. I don't wear gloves as often as I should on the rig so my hands almost always look like this from holding onto handrails or messing with dirty cables. I don't have time to wash them enough to make a difference -- the soap isn't great on this rig and it takes awhile to scrub skin clean. One time I tried in vain to use the antibacterial gel by the trays, but all it managed to do was smear around the dirt, because really, where's it going to go? So I don't even bother cleaning my hands for meals. I guess the french fries taste fine. After this, I will probably find the thought of washing perfectly clean-looking hands before eating as funny.

01:20

Walking downstairs from the galley to the change room I see an old black man I don't recognize in briefs and a shirt just long enough so that I cannot actually verify that he's wearing any underwear at all. Maybe he just started his hitch and didn't realize there was a lady on board. Normally I would pretend I don't see him, but we have to walk by each other in a narrow corridor.

Facebook

Though I hardly ever look at facebook while on land, offshore I check it a few times a day simply out of boredom. When I read through my "friends'" complaints ("I can't fall asleep. Ugh!" or "Why did I ever agree to work a 12-14 hour shift today. FMLLL), it makes me want to punch someone in the face. Not really, but I have the strongest urge to post a status telling them to stop bitching and that I work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week and that I have to wash my underwear in the shower with me because I am afraid that someone will jerk off with them and put them back in the laundry and I'll never know and then I'm the idiot walking around in underwear someone jerked off in.* But no. I will not post this on Facebook. I will post it here.

*This is not me being irrational; over the past year and a half I have heard a few other rig urban legends involving women's underwear that I will not repeat here and now, but if you are curious I can tell you some stories. One involves some cajun voodoo shit.

Untitled

It's been awhile since I've written, partly because I've been busy but mostly because I've felt uninspired. But don't think this is so because I'm sad. I'm not. I'm happy and hopeful for the first time in a long time. I'm starting a new job in mid-July and moving in with Neil. I'm excited about getting a new apartment together and maybe even getting a dog. Of course, because I'm me, I can't only be happy and hopeful and excited - there must be some anxiety and complex mixed emotions that go along with any life change, no matter how positive that change may be. I always liked to think of myself as unique and quirky and special. This job fits in with that image of myself fairly nicely. I'm the only girl on this rig, and while I don't like to be stared at 24/7 (not in a perverse way, just pure curiosity), I do get immense please out of knowing that I'm doing something completely different from everyone I've ever known. I like working with my hands and getting dirty and not bathing for too long and knowing when I need to use a pipe wrench or needlenose plyers or allen keys and I like that I actually need to use them. Who I am on the rig is so completely unlike who I am on my days off or who I was before this job. And it makes me sad that my family and friends will never see that side of me -- the person that's able to give technical instructions to a group of grown blue collar men and have them listen, and the person that knows how to fix and perform maintenance on million dollar equipment. In the past two months I've finally reached that level of competence that I hoped I would before I quit this job. I'm super helpful and skilled and know what to do in most every situation; I don't need many instructions.

And yet I'm quitting, right when I've achieved all of this. When I return to Maryland I'll have this technical knowledge that isn't of any use outside of the oilfield, and that person who I've become because of this job...she'll be gone and no one where I'm going will have ever known her. I'm scared of becoming painfully average: riding the metro to work, wearing sensible heels, shaving my legs more than once every two weeks. Fuck.

As I'm writing this I realize I'm making my current life seem awesome and my future-DC life seem horrible, but that's just me getting nostalgic and melodramatic. The truth is that most of the time on this rig and off it, I'm lonely and aware that I'm not within 1000 miles of anyone that loves me. And a lot of the times being on the rig is rewarding, but many times it's so stressful that I can barely stand it and think about jumping off the side. Right now, I'm in the ideal point in my field engineer career--I'm good at my job and help out the day hand, I know what needs to be done without being told, but when shit hits the fan I can wake up my day hand and we troubleshoot the issue together. The responsibility lies on him, and knowing that takes an unbelievable amount of pressure off me. It still sucks when things go wrong, but I don't take it as bad as I would if I were in charge. If I were to stay in this company, I would probably be a day hand by the end of 2011. I do not want this. Some people like to be leaders, and I think I have the potential to be a leader in certain arenas, but in a high-pressure situation where computers are breaking and equipment is malfunctioning and everyone on the rig is waiting on us to fix our shit...don't look at me and don't wake me up because I will be the one in the corner pulling out her hair and bitting her nails to a stump.

So yes, now is a good time for me to leave the oilfield.

Never invest in food

Yesterday I bought $70 worth of groceries because I was told I wouldn't be going offshore until April 11th. I told Neil yesterday, "The day you spend 70 bucks on groceries will inevitably be the day before you get sent offshore." I'm going offshore tomorrow.

Also, I was planning on going camping and canoeing with my two non-oilfield friends tonight, but now we're just going to go for the day instead because I can't spend the night. I guess they didn't want to camp without me (they live and work together and I guess you run out of things to talk about at a certain point), which is disappointing but flattering nonetheless. Just when you think this job isn't so bad, it goes and fucks up the first real plans you've made. Not to mention the groceries...

Rig pics!

Nearby drillship in rough waters.

The same nearby drillship, in calm waters with a supply boat.

Fellow nighthand, sleeping during the Saturday morning fire drill.

More people waiting around for the fire drill to be over.

Supply boat pulled up next to the rig for deliveries.

I wish so much I could take high-quality pictures offshore, but you need a hot work permit to use a camera with a flash, and there are often confidentiality issues regardless. I took all these pictures with my cell phone camera, secretively. I think they're pretty good for a camera phone.

Life Update

Last week during my week off, I had my first post-oilfield job interview. I went all out: pencil skirt, blouse, blazer, pantyhose, heels. Heels. And pantyhose. Though I used to get dressed up on a fairly regular basic in college, last week I felt like a man in drag. And not a fabulous gay man in drag. Standing with all of the other well-dressed 9-to-5ers on their way to work on the metro, I felt like a yuppie. I felt un-unique. I suppose that will be one of the biggest adjustments if I leave the oilfield for an office job. Not to say I will miss all the staring, but I like having a job that was strange. I like flying to work on a helicopter. I like wearing coveralls. I even like waking up in the middle of the day for fire drills and sitting around outside in the sunlight, my head resting on the grimey, oversized life jacket we're forced to wear.

So why am I applying for new jobs? Well, in short, I'm miserable. Not all the time of course, but I don't like my life right now. I miss my family and my boyfriend, who I'll move in with once I return to Maryland. The future I envision for myself doesn't involve the oil industry, at least not directly. I still want to be special, to accomplish something brilliant and satisfying, but I want to do that as a writer, or a researcher. And to do that, I need to start over. I will eventually need to leave oil, go to grad school or start as a low-level reporter somewhere. And if I'm starting over, I want to do it at 23, not 28 after my heart has hardened from years in the oilfield, and I've lost the man I want to marry (because who has successfully had a 6 year long distance relationship?).

The reason I haven't blogged recently is because I don't want to be negative in my blog posts, and lately it's been hard to be positive about this job. The money is good, but the schedule is undesirable to say the least. I'm working a 4-and-2 (4 weeks on, 2 weeks off), but those two weeks "off" are not really mine. This time, I got to go home, but I was told by my manager in a recent email,

"Please do not get the impression that every time you come in for 14 days that you are free to travel all around the country. This is not approved. There are times where you will be needed during your days off at the base."

This was no surprise to me, but I wasn't happy to hear it regardless. In our district, having a set rotation is a luxury, because you're actually able to make plans. However in our district, your manager will often expect you to hang around town to help out in the shop on your days off. From what I can tell, being expected to work/help out on days off is very specific to my company and this district. Everyone else on the rig I'm working on has as much time off as they do on (2-and-2, 3-and-3, 4-and-4), and their eyes pop out of their head when I tell them that not only do I work a 4-and-2, but that I'm not allowed to live wherever I want because I may be needed in the shop on days off. Other companies, such as Geoservices, allow their employees to live wherever they want in the world, and then simply fly them to the rig when scheduled.

Working 28 days offshore is tough for most people, even people that have worked offshore for decades. While some people love being offshore, most just do it for the money. I like to ask people on the rig how long they've been working offshore, and if they like it. It's not a question most people get asked, and most of the times they tell me no, they don't like it. But the money is good. Most people would rather be with their families, drink a beer after a hard day's work, sleep on a nice mattress. I work nights, so I miss the daylight. I miss iced coffees, and window shopping on the weekends. I don't like sleeping on the top bunk, and I imagine falling and cracking my head open every time I climb down the unsteady ladder that no one else seems to need.

I suppose my least favorite things about working offshore are the loneliness, and the anxiety. I've heard a lot of people say that my job is all "firefighting"-- most of the time it's boring, until something breaks and suddenly shit has hit the fan and you're scrambling to the clean it up before anyone finds out. I don't do well under pressure, and while this job has certainly helped me improve in this way, some people thrive on the high-stress environment. I panic. I've accepted that I won't be winning World's Best Field Engineer, but I'm starting to accept it rather than view it as a personal failure. I try to tell myself that I'll find something that I excel at eventually.

The hardest thing about quitting this job will be that I didn't get what I was hoping for out of this experience. Some of that was unrealisticly rosy expectations, and some was being hired on during an economic crisis and then trying to go through training in the midst of a drilling moratorium. Hopefully by the time I quit, I'll have some good stories, some interesting memories, and a thicker skin.