Woohoo! What a day of highs and lows in the world of produce. This afternoon at lunch there were... guess what... more collard greens! They have served collard greens at just about every single meal I have been to (excluding breakfast). The one novelty was cooked carrots, and I ate them by the spoonful. And as I spooned down the soggy and squishy collard greens and carrots I thought to myself "Is this all there is? Is this what I have to put up with in the pursuit of a balanced meal?"
And I would have had to count myself lucky, because a friend of mine in the oilfield was working on a rig off the coast of Brazil where they served NOTHING but meat. NOTHING. She had to write a safety violation report on the hazards of unbalanced meals before she could get vegetables. And then they went right back to serving all meat when she left.
But today I saw stacks and stacks of V8 cans on the shelves! A thrilling prospect, that, since I do enjoy V8 (much more than collard greens), and I can drink two or three cans per day to supplement the poor offerings otherwise. And then joy upon joys, they served broccoli with dinner tonight! I finished the entire tray of it, and still could have had plenty more.
Hopefully they'll serve broccoli again soon.
P. S. Sorry for the utter inanity of this post. Very little happened today, as you can tell.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Sunday, December 28, 2008
The Dangers of Sexual Harrassment
In other non-job related news, when I was in the Dallas airport the other day, and old-ish and generally unpleasant looking man made kissing gesture at me accompanied by rather loud and vulgar noises. It was rather surprising since we were in such a public place for such rudeness, but more than that, in my pajamas and greasy hair, having spent all day in planes and airports and carrying multiple unwieldy bags, I was hardly looking my best and there were plenty of more-attractive women than I nearby.
So I took my normal plan of action. I ignored him. When he did it again fifteen minutes later, I gave him a scornful look and walked out of his line of sight. I was in that position, indignantly planning my witty and politically-correct set-down I would use on him should he be unpleasant enough to do it again, when a sudden commotion alerted me to the fact that there was some sort of emergency situation afoot. Lo and behold, the unpleasant man had somehow collapsed on the floor directly in front of where he had been sitting. The paramedics were called and eventually arrived, by which point he was conscious and talking, and warning everyone against moving him from his awkward position by claiming that he had titanium plates in his neck that shouldn't be disturbed. Before my flight departed he was taken away in a stretcher and neck-brace, and I was left with the moral difficulty of trying not to feel so satisfiedly vindicated when someone might actually be in serious medical trouble.
This is something I have very little fear of encountering at work. Even though I am the ONLY female on an isolated rig of extremely uncouth men, I am protected by the fact that they live in mortal fear of losing their jobs IMMEDIATELY should they say or do something that might happen to offend me. The Company man has already let me know that I'm to come to him if I "have any problems", and I don't doubt that he's already had the "watch your mouth around the lady" talk at the daily safety meetings with all of the rig hands. It's a standard spiel that they give any time a woman arrives at a rig, and for days afterwards the crew all look like they're walking on eggshells around me.
So I took my normal plan of action. I ignored him. When he did it again fifteen minutes later, I gave him a scornful look and walked out of his line of sight. I was in that position, indignantly planning my witty and politically-correct set-down I would use on him should he be unpleasant enough to do it again, when a sudden commotion alerted me to the fact that there was some sort of emergency situation afoot. Lo and behold, the unpleasant man had somehow collapsed on the floor directly in front of where he had been sitting. The paramedics were called and eventually arrived, by which point he was conscious and talking, and warning everyone against moving him from his awkward position by claiming that he had titanium plates in his neck that shouldn't be disturbed. Before my flight departed he was taken away in a stretcher and neck-brace, and I was left with the moral difficulty of trying not to feel so satisfiedly vindicated when someone might actually be in serious medical trouble.
This is something I have very little fear of encountering at work. Even though I am the ONLY female on an isolated rig of extremely uncouth men, I am protected by the fact that they live in mortal fear of losing their jobs IMMEDIATELY should they say or do something that might happen to offend me. The Company man has already let me know that I'm to come to him if I "have any problems", and I don't doubt that he's already had the "watch your mouth around the lady" talk at the daily safety meetings with all of the rig hands. It's a standard spiel that they give any time a woman arrives at a rig, and for days afterwards the crew all look like they're walking on eggshells around me.
Offshore, at last!
I have been employed with this company for approximately 10.5 months, and I have FINALLY been sent on my very first job offshore (although I did once spend 6 hours offshore in August performing a rig-down, but since I didn't spend the night there it doesn't count). This length of time is shockingly high for someone who works out of an office based not thirty miles from the Gulf of Mexico. In fact, my office is not even supposed to be handling jobs in Colorado and Wyoming. They don't want to have jobs in Colorado and Wyoming. But the Denver office apparently wasn't up to the task, so one thing led to another.... and I spent six months in Wyoming.
So how do I like it? Well it's a lot noisier than a land rig, since everything is much closer together, but I like the white noise. It's almost always windy and I have to be very careful that my hard had does not blow into the water (I'm supposed to have gotten myself a chin-strap for it, but it slipped my mind as I have not needed it so far!), but the air smells fresh and it's warm enough that the breeze on one's face is quite pleasant. They have a galley and a rig cook so I don't have to prepare my own meals. The food they serve is very "southern": lots of beans and barbecue, sausage, etc. They have some variety of "vegetables" of which I have seen canned corn and peas, collard greens, and lima beans cooked with some sort of meat to the point where you really only tasted the meat. But, processed though they are, they're more vegetables than I'm inclined to cook for myself and so I fill my plate with the thanks that there are vegetables at all.
I sleep in a trailer known as the "penthouse", for which reason I can only ascribe to that it's seated on top of the helipad, the highest point on the rig next to the top of the derrick itself. It's tiny, but adequate, and the gentle shaking coming from whatever machine it is downstairs that causes the entire platform to vibrate enough to make reading dizzy-fying is lulling and conducive to sleep. The logging unit (my office) is directly next to my sleeping quarters, so I get a nice view of miles and miles of water when I open the door and walk out onto the helipad. There are a few rigs within range of eyesight from here, and on a clear day I can see the tiniest fraction of a millimeter of land (getting to our rig was about an hour by boat). Last night was lovely for I saw a row of buoys with their blinking lights in the horizon, flashing away like a far-off holiday decoration.
I'm not really working yet. They had some delays and they won't start drilling until tonight or tomorrow so I've been napping, reading, and filling out paperwork throughout today. During the short 10-ish hours I had in Lafayette between returning from Christmas and leaving for this rig (I got the call at noon while I waiting for my flight in the Philadelphia airport to be ready to leave for this job the following 6am), I purchased a few New Year's noisemakers with which to celebrate. Of course, I realized that since I'm going to be working the day shift of 6am to 6pm, I will probably forgo the countdown in exchange for a more solid night's sleep, but I can enjoy them nonetheless . . . once I wake up.
So how do I like it? Well it's a lot noisier than a land rig, since everything is much closer together, but I like the white noise. It's almost always windy and I have to be very careful that my hard had does not blow into the water (I'm supposed to have gotten myself a chin-strap for it, but it slipped my mind as I have not needed it so far!), but the air smells fresh and it's warm enough that the breeze on one's face is quite pleasant. They have a galley and a rig cook so I don't have to prepare my own meals. The food they serve is very "southern": lots of beans and barbecue, sausage, etc. They have some variety of "vegetables" of which I have seen canned corn and peas, collard greens, and lima beans cooked with some sort of meat to the point where you really only tasted the meat. But, processed though they are, they're more vegetables than I'm inclined to cook for myself and so I fill my plate with the thanks that there are vegetables at all.
I sleep in a trailer known as the "penthouse", for which reason I can only ascribe to that it's seated on top of the helipad, the highest point on the rig next to the top of the derrick itself. It's tiny, but adequate, and the gentle shaking coming from whatever machine it is downstairs that causes the entire platform to vibrate enough to make reading dizzy-fying is lulling and conducive to sleep. The logging unit (my office) is directly next to my sleeping quarters, so I get a nice view of miles and miles of water when I open the door and walk out onto the helipad. There are a few rigs within range of eyesight from here, and on a clear day I can see the tiniest fraction of a millimeter of land (getting to our rig was about an hour by boat). Last night was lovely for I saw a row of buoys with their blinking lights in the horizon, flashing away like a far-off holiday decoration.
I'm not really working yet. They had some delays and they won't start drilling until tonight or tomorrow so I've been napping, reading, and filling out paperwork throughout today. During the short 10-ish hours I had in Lafayette between returning from Christmas and leaving for this rig (I got the call at noon while I waiting for my flight in the Philadelphia airport to be ready to leave for this job the following 6am), I purchased a few New Year's noisemakers with which to celebrate. Of course, I realized that since I'm going to be working the day shift of 6am to 6pm, I will probably forgo the countdown in exchange for a more solid night's sleep, but I can enjoy them nonetheless . . . once I wake up.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
What is it that I do all day?
This is a question I get a lot. It's natural, after all I definitely wondered that when I was preparing for this job.
So what is it that I do? I suppose I must describe this in a day-by-day basis.
A "typical" day: A day while drilling is what I would most likely consider "typical" since its essentially a day that involves me doing what I'm supposed to do. On a day like that, I will wake up at about 4:00pm to be ready for the night shift at 6:00pm. At 5:30 I have to attend the daily safety meeting which is boring, takes thirty minutes, and happens eeeeeeevvvvveeery day. Then I show up to my "office" which is a steel box smaller than the tiniest dorm room where I watch six monitors to ensure that everything is working well. Each monitor has its own little programs that have their own little quirks and details that have to be watched, and so I do that, making sure there is nothing wrong with our tools downhole. When there are problems, I fix them. When they can't be fixed, I wake up the day engineer or call the office in Louisiana. I continue on like this until after midnight, at which point I process the data from the day and send it to the offices in Houston and Lafayette. This takes about two hours on a normal day, and then I continue as before until I finish my shift at 6 am. Then I go back to the trailer I live in on the other side of the rig site, eat breakfast, shower, and go to bed. I prefer the days uneventful and problem-free, which they typically are not.
A stand-by day: On this hitch, I have so far been here for four weeks and we have only actually been drilling for 9 days. This is NOT typical, but they are interested in getting all sorts of other logs and samples that they cannot obtain while drilling. Depending on the particular Company Man (rig supervisor) who happens to be on shift at the time, I might have a fair amount of freedom or I might be under virtual house arrest and barely allowed to leave the rig. Right now unfortunately the latter sort of Company Man is out here, so I spend my days in the trailer. Occasionally I fill out a little paperwork, and I have the short morning report to fill out every night at midnight, but other than that I do very little work. There is a satellite television and I watch movie after movie on it. Internet, books, embroidery, and anything else I can think of to fill the time. Needless to say it is very boring after weeks on end, but I get paid far too much for it so it's bearable.
As for the days that don't fit into either of those two profiles, it is too difficult to be able to describe such randomness at the moment. I may endeavor to do so at another time, but I've been awake and rotting my brain on mindless TV all day and I'm about to go to bed so not tonight. My apologies.
In other news, the low temperatures (which I get a lot of being completely night shifted) are about 7 degrees farhenheit. It snowed about a half an inch the other day, which has made things around here even lovelier than usual. The weather report calls for more snow later this weekend, and I couldn't be more thrilled!
So what is it that I do? I suppose I must describe this in a day-by-day basis.
A "typical" day: A day while drilling is what I would most likely consider "typical" since its essentially a day that involves me doing what I'm supposed to do. On a day like that, I will wake up at about 4:00pm to be ready for the night shift at 6:00pm. At 5:30 I have to attend the daily safety meeting which is boring, takes thirty minutes, and happens eeeeeeevvvvveeery day. Then I show up to my "office" which is a steel box smaller than the tiniest dorm room where I watch six monitors to ensure that everything is working well. Each monitor has its own little programs that have their own little quirks and details that have to be watched, and so I do that, making sure there is nothing wrong with our tools downhole. When there are problems, I fix them. When they can't be fixed, I wake up the day engineer or call the office in Louisiana. I continue on like this until after midnight, at which point I process the data from the day and send it to the offices in Houston and Lafayette. This takes about two hours on a normal day, and then I continue as before until I finish my shift at 6 am. Then I go back to the trailer I live in on the other side of the rig site, eat breakfast, shower, and go to bed. I prefer the days uneventful and problem-free, which they typically are not.
A stand-by day: On this hitch, I have so far been here for four weeks and we have only actually been drilling for 9 days. This is NOT typical, but they are interested in getting all sorts of other logs and samples that they cannot obtain while drilling. Depending on the particular Company Man (rig supervisor) who happens to be on shift at the time, I might have a fair amount of freedom or I might be under virtual house arrest and barely allowed to leave the rig. Right now unfortunately the latter sort of Company Man is out here, so I spend my days in the trailer. Occasionally I fill out a little paperwork, and I have the short morning report to fill out every night at midnight, but other than that I do very little work. There is a satellite television and I watch movie after movie on it. Internet, books, embroidery, and anything else I can think of to fill the time. Needless to say it is very boring after weeks on end, but I get paid far too much for it so it's bearable.
As for the days that don't fit into either of those two profiles, it is too difficult to be able to describe such randomness at the moment. I may endeavor to do so at another time, but I've been awake and rotting my brain on mindless TV all day and I'm about to go to bed so not tonight. My apologies.
In other news, the low temperatures (which I get a lot of being completely night shifted) are about 7 degrees farhenheit. It snowed about a half an inch the other day, which has made things around here even lovelier than usual. The weather report calls for more snow later this weekend, and I couldn't be more thrilled!
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