Two Bottles And A Down Turn

This is probably my first LinkedIn post of my personal experience. Many will swipe right past it. Hopefully someone in a bind will take a few minutes to read this and maybe it will help them. 

First, let me state. I am a millennial. By some stupid definition I am grouped into the 'lazy, handout group' and I can't completely deny it. I was a spoiled child. Everything that was given to me, my father made sure it was a lesson and I worked for it but I was spoiled. 

 It went to great schools, had great friends, got a college degree paid for by mommy and daddy. While being a spoiled child was great, I had no idea what I was in for when I was ready to be independent. 

I got a fantastic job out of college managing offshore supply and tug boats servicing our offshore rigs. I absolutely loved it. The boats, the motors, the equipment, and the people. I was hooked on oilfield life. Unfortunately, it did not last very long when oil started to tank. People who were best friends gave up their relationships trying to keep their paycheck. It killed me to see a team torn apart. I resigned from a fantastic job with hopes I could join a better team. 

A few months later, I was brought on by an oilfield contract labor company to do business development and manage the company's on and offshore crews. Great job with great people. I ran all over to heliports to see my guys before they flew out at 3am. And when oil tanked even lower, I spent my time trying to make sure all my offshore team members could relocate to onshore positions in South and West Texas. Shortly after, I was on the road visiting my men on production sites instead of heliports. We were all in it together.  

In 2016, I married my wonderful wife and at the time was planning to move to South Texas per my company's direction. I drove to Arizona to spend my honeymoon with my wife... On the way back I dropped her off in San Antonio so she could fly home and I could go back to work. 

Two days later, I got the call on a Friday afternoon that my position was no longer needed at the company. I was absolutely devastated. How could I come home and see my new wife immediately after our honeymoon and tell her I no longer had a job. 

At that point, I had a brand new house, new truck, and fancy bay boat. I made the typical mistakes of living beyond my means thinking I would always be making more money. 

That Friday I was making 6 figures, 1500 a month car allowance and all expenses paid....and not a dollar in savings.  

I took a break on my ride home to assess everything I had and how much I could sell to get by in the meantime. I called a close friend whose family owned a small operating company in Louisiana and asked if they needed help. I was told they needed a hand and could pay 12 an hour. I knew it wasn't enough but I needed something. 

As soon as I got home, I put everything up for sale. Boat went first, then truck, then home generator off the side of the house, and lastly guns that my deceased father had passed on to me. 

I thought constantly how hard it would be to swallow my pride as a high level employee of a large oilfield company and become a 'hand'.  

I started work the next Monday morning. Met at the bosses house for 4am. Load up skid steer and all attachments on to a gooseneck and make the 1.5 hour drive to the production field. 

At that time, I was just trying to keep the lights on in the house for my new family. I thought it would be the hardest experience of my life. And it was the hardest experience I have ever been through. However, it was also the best learning experience I had ever been given and set my soul on fire for the oilfield. 

I got to do it all. One day I was weed eating the entire lease in the middle of Louisiana summer. The next I was rocking a choke on the first well we drilled. That well started with me sticking a stake in the ground in the middle of the woods. A few weeks later we had completely cleared all the land and built a well pad for the rig to come in. I was fascinated by everything I was doing. Even running flow line through the swamp, one joint at a time, 60 inch pipe wrench and 6ft brass cheater pipe to get them tight. I had to go disassemble an old tank battery in Mississippi so we could have a separator and treater for the new well. Equipment was taken apart by me and one man in a day. We were headed back at midnight with 2 trailers loaded down completely thrilled about the new well we were about to bring online. 

We had old equipment, no PPE, no hardhat or steel toes. I didn't even know what a tie off harness was. My high lift work took place out of the bucket of a muddy bobcat. I did the most sketchy and dangerous things some people will ever do. At that point in time, I wasn't doing it for a paycheck. I was doing it so I could see oil. Real oil. Come out of the ground. I could not wait to see it for the first time. 

As many know, when you bring a well online, you sample it constantly. At times we had 20 gatorade bottles lined up next to the well showing the oil to water breakout. 

To many, these bottles were just bottles showing a statistic. To me, they were proof of the blood and sweat I had put into making a well successful. We would spend days baby sitting these wells, working around the clock rocking chokes every 30 minutes to keep her flowing. I was so tired I couldn't see straight, but by God, when I rolled down the window in the truck, I knew the sound of the tree sanding up and it was go time. Keep the well flowing. 

I was cursed at, beat up, more tired than I had ever been. Came home every day in my second pair of clothes drenched in oil. I was so proud of what I had done that day. 

I knew being a 'hand' was temporary and I couldn't live off of the money forever, but it was the best learning experience of my life. 

I took these two bottles home from the first 2 wells I had brought online. To many people, they look like a couple of dirty water bottles. To me they meant and still mean the world. 

Life gets hard and the oilfield can be unforgiving at times. When those times come, I walk into my shop and check myself by looking at these bottles of oil and remembering what it took for them to end up in my possession. 

I watched oil dip below zero this past week. No one in our industry can't be in fear of losing their job right now. It can seem like the end of the world. Just know, this has happened in the past and it will happen again in the future. I chose the oilfield life. I'll make it through this downturn just as I did the last. I am fortunate to still be employed, but I understand things may change as this gets worse. 

If you chose this industry for the reasons I have, you will make it through. There's a reason people stay in the oilfield, and it is not just the money. It's the relationships and the bond we share. That is what gets us through this. 

This time will pass and we will come out better on the other side. It isn't easy for any of us but we can pull through as the patch has in the past several times. Start your day right, keep your chin up, and never be too proud to sling a 60 inch wrench to get the job done. 

God bless all my oilfield brothers and sisters.