Oil-Black and the Seven Gremlins

Hi-ho, hi-ho, it’s off to drill we go…

So sang the seven dwarves back in the good old days, even as Snow-White prepared the next logging evaluation programme. Few back in those days were aware of Snow-White’s alter-ego and how, at dusk, out would come the black leather & black eye-shadow, and Vivaldi’s four seasons (with harp accompaniment) would be replaced by Goth-Metal. Her alter-ego – “Oil-Black” as she liked to be called, was a part of Snow-White the dwarves had come to know and love. Of late, Oil-Black had even taken to replacing Snow-White in the daytime. After all, there is only so much Vivaldi you can take.

Yet one strange night, as the moon shone, and the wolves howled of impending doom (again), a strange grey fog descended on their home and the seven dwarves were transformed. In their sleep their ears grew green and pointed. Their teeth became sharp and carnivorous. Their eyes narrowed, their eyebrows angled steep and menacingly, and their pupils squeezed slit-like as a cat’s.

Imagine Oil-Black’s shock as she awoke from her slumber to see her friends metamorphosed into seven gremlins. This was only the beginning of her problems because not only had their appearance changed, but their enthusiasm for their daily drilling had dissipated dramatically. Bashful became Bouncer, Sneezy became Snooty, Sleepy became Slow-boat, Doc became Ditherer, Dopey became Dropper, and Grumpy became Groveler. Her bright and breezy soul mates had become a cruel parody of themselves.

The full scale of the disaster did not fully come home to Oil-Black until she tried to plan her next drilling foray. In a pattern that she was to see repeated again and again, Snooty would see it almost as an obligation to remind everyone that he had already looked at the proposed location a hundred times and nothing could possibly have changed. Bouncer, when asked, would deny any qualification to make a decision on this particular location and suggest other members of the gremlin throng should do so. Slow-boat, who was in charge of purchase orders and accounts, would merely mumble at anything that was said, in apparent agreement, then do nothing.  Ditherer would indignantly proclaim that there was not nearly enough data to make any kind of decision at this stage and propose a new technical study utilising the very latest modelling software, noting that the latest ones really had some very pretty colours. Dropper would almost always go along with everything until the very last minute and then suggest dropping it because something much better had come along, or because the latest proposal did not have things presented in very pretty colours and Ditherer really had a good point. Groveler would typically provide a further pre-text for this by indicating he had found a wonderful new investor who had promised hundreds of millions of dollars but who probably wouldn’t like this particular well location as it was not guaranteed, and anyway the prospect didn’t have a very nice name.

And so, it went on. Oil-Black tried her best but in the end, she too became forlorn and wizened by the tedious predictability of it all. Instead she would slip out of the meetings while the Gremlins quarrelled about the risking approach, and sit on the hillside, wishing that some new breeze would lift away the strange grey fog that descended every evening. She knew that one day it would, but for now, “hi-ho, hi-ho” had become “no-show, no-show, it’s off to balk we go". 

Of a happy ending, I wish I could tell. It was true, Oil-Black could occasionally glimpse though momentary holes in the mist, the distant glowing noctilucent clouds that promised of wind and a weather change, but as soon as the hole appeared the cold dank mist would close up around her again.

Of this sad allegory what conclusion can we draw? Well for Oil-Black she knew things were never going to go on as they had forever, but she was surprised that the premature demise had come about not, as she had long imagined, because of exhausted resources, but instead by that strangest of all strange fogs – attitudes.

We can therefore witness this depressing tale and take heed - of course it is important to say "no" sometimes, and all of us must do so in order to do our jobs properly and to be good responsible dwarves. Yet we must beware also that strange fog which descends upon us, unwittingly as we sleep, driving us to say no - just because everyone else has and because it's easy.