On 04/22/2012 12:51 AM, Shay wrote:
> Taken from a letter to Jim Charter, who is doing very well. Thought I'd
> post this bit here. I haven't been absent quite that long.
>
> Seven years ago, I had been in the Caterpillar parts business with my
> father for six years. During that time, he went through a treatment for
> hepatitis C. Thanks to $1500 a month in medicine, he is among the "rare
> subset of individuals"[1] to beat the disease physically, but the
> experience wore him down mentally. Only in his early 50s at the time, he
> (consciously? unconsciously?) made the decision to retire. I was left
> with the decision to either abandon or take out loans and "marry" the
> parts business. At 31, I felt too young to be trapped in an office and
> tied to a telephone. I bailed.
>
> I schemed with a younger friend, who was having career problems of his
> own (mid 20s, failure-to-launch, mumblecore type), to run away to the
> oilfield. A customer from the parts business was friends with a VP at a
> Houston oil company. He thought I was crazy, but he promised to help get
> us hired. The younger friend bailed (he works at the Apple Store now).
>
> So I went to the oilfield fit and eager. I had a punk rock band and
> buzzed off green hair. When I landed on the rig, the rig manager met me
> in the briefing room, asked me to remove my hat, and said about my hair,
> "That's a career-limiting mistake there." I laughed, "Career? I don't
> want a career. I want to be a roustabout!"
>
> We hadn't gotten off to a good start, but my work ethic quickly won him
> over. I was getting paid about $45k to sweep, mop, and paint, jobs I'd
> done earlier in my life for $27 dollars a day. I had offers, but no
> intention to "move up" even to roughneck. I used to council new hires to
> "'Just say NO' to promotion!" Still, I was within months offered a
> chance to train for a barge engineer job (typically takes years to be
> considered), and common sense, at least for the moment, took over long
> enough for me to accept.
>
> That didn't work out. Contract negotiations with the Saudi oil company
> to which the rig was contracted resulted in all but a few American's
> being left behind when the rig went overseas.
>
> I did get to ride the tow-ship as far as Africa. It had been a life-long
> ambition to work my way across the ocean. I read "Moby Dick" for the
> third time during the journey.
>
> I came back with nowhere to go but a land rig. I had plenty of money in
> the bank and plenty of prospects. I decided to try life on a land rig
> and leave if it didn't suit me. It was terrible. My lifestyle
> differences are too great for me to live with rednecks. Offshore was
> easy; there was no alcohol, and we all ate in a galley. On a land rig,
> my not drinking or eating Hot Pockets made the other's suspicious.
>
> But I stayed. I wasn't sure why at first, but in time came to understand
> consciously that an environments effects your past as much as it does
> your present or future. I liked living with my hobo past. I like to feel
> like a laborer. And my home life was extraordinary. I had two weeks of
> vacation a month. So much time to nap on the bayous, ride my bicycles,
> have tiny adventures.
>
> Things changed two years ago. I was working some extra time on a rig
> that was only 35 minutes from my house. One day, when we got off, a man
> from the safety department was waiting to train us on some new forms. He
> offered to read the training presentation himself or allow us to read it
> individually. I asked if he would let /me/ read it. He allowed this and
> I, wanting to get home, read the presentation /very/ quickly. The safety
> man pulled out his phone and recorded my "speed-reading."
>
> I shortly returned to my usual assignment hundreds of miles away, but
> the safety man came back looking for me. He tracked me down and offered
> me a job with the safety department. I didn't know what the job was or
> what it paid, but, on a whim, I said, "Sure. When to I start?" It wasn't
> that easy. Took almost a year to get into the department, but I
> eventually did.
>
> I wasn't well liked on the land rig. I was even hated by some. But I was
> loved by the safety department. My work ethic again impressed. I was
> traveling between rigs and doing inspections. In addition to merely
> finding problems, I took it upon myself to correct them, and that often
> meant shoveling, hammering, and lifting, things no one had ever seen a
> "safety man" do. After a year (we're now up to last February), I was
> offered a job in the office.
>
> Now 38, I still feel too young to work in an office, but my time
> traveling in the safety department through motels on land and redneck
> galleys offshore has taken a physical toll. I have had to eat a lot of
> shit, and this assault on my devout atheist principles has become an
> obsession. The office is only six miles away, so I can ride my bicycle,
> and I'm home most nights. Carrie Ann is, in theory, glad to have me
> there but sill getting used to sharing the house. Work moves very slowly
> in the office. Too many meetings.
> -----
>
> It was in my new capacity as HSE Compliance Coordinator that I was
> flying out to a rig Monday with six others (All above me. One a VP) to
> confront a problem rig on their own turf. One of the six was the rig
> manager who confronted me about my green hair seven years ago. At the
> heliport, he held up an issue of "Teen Vogue" with a blue-haired girl on
> the cover and smiled at me. As you know[2], the green hair story was all
> but retired by the end of the day. He has a better story to tell about
> me now. The seven of us made an extraordinary entrance at the rig when
> we crashed into the water only a few feet from it. Thanks to the
> experience of the pilot, we were all able to escape, but the helicopter
> is in two pieces on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.
>
> TGIF?
>
> -Shay
>
> [1] Play on something Jim had said.
>
> [2] I had just contacted Jim before getting on the helicopter: "I've
> been working on a short story ... Would you be willing to give it a
> read? I'm about to get into a helicopter, but I can send it out to you
> tonight." Several hours later: "Ha! The helicopter crashed!"

very cool story ... ah to be young a fearless again. great that you took 
a chance (job/career change) ... it's turned into and adventure ... eh! 
I have my own helicopter story ... had just got out of active service in 
the Navy. Reported to reserve unit for first summer service (two weeks) 
and the squadron was headed to Whidby Island Washington. I was part of 
the crew ferrying the helos up from Alameda NAS. We stopped at Portland 
Oregon Air National guard station for refueling. The pilot needed to do 
a "hot refuel" ... stop the rotor, fold the blades and then take on fuel 
with the turbine still running. As the blade folded it pinched a 
hydraulic line and fluid hit the exhaust and ignited. I'm standing in 
the cargo door looking up at a fire that spread to the rotor. Well the 
safety crew was quick putting out the fire, but the helo now down for 
the rest of the two week deployment. It was one of three birds that was 
fully mission capable (anti-submarine warfare) so I had to strip out ALL 
the ASW electronics and I rode in the back of a cargo plane with the 
gear the rest of the way up to Whidby. Then it was an adventure ... in 
retrospect I now see the dangerous nature in what we were doing ... 
again thanks for sharing your story ... I enjoyed it!

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