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!