Renegade’s and BigDave’s stories in the douchey names thread got me reminiscing a little bit about time in the patch.



I was on a lease back in about 2014 that had a railroad track running right through the little access road. Some hands ran to town that night and got wasted. Coming back to the rig they got hit by the train about 200 yards from the rig. They walked away from it but the pickup was toast. Needless to say, they got run off.

Saw a guy drop a stand of 8” from the board tryin to latch up. Clanged around in the derrick for a bit and nobody got hurt. Scared the hell out of some people, though.

Saw a derrickhand come down the Geronimo line butt naked when they called him to take a drug test. Figured he was run off so he went out in style.

Saw a motorhand go inside a porta potty and then two floorhands ratchet strapped it shut, picked it up with a telehandler, and set it on top of the company man’s house.

Saw a roustabout get put in the hospital after putting a tarantula on a driller’s shoulder.

Saw a safety man who was a self-proclaimed jam up driller get on the handle to let the driller go smoke and twist the BHA off within 5 minutes.



I’ll think of more, but let’s hear some of your best stories.

Heard of the the motor and floor hand getting caught fugking in the mixing shack. Both dudes.

To all the enviro-weenies who cry out that oil drilling hurts wildlife: I've cut deer and turkey and coyote tracks that went up to and around the fence at the base of an active pumpjack.

Yeah, there are critters on pads all the time

Couple of the leases I’ve been on have had deer on the pad. Routinely saw coyotes running within 1/4 mile of the rig, too. Had a night co man pay a landowner to hunt the lease. Stashed a bow off location and would hunt every morning. He could cook, too, and fed us several times from deer he’d killed.

Sounds like rig stories,

we were at the Bollinger shipyard in Fourchon once.

Roustabout was on the dock to keep up who was on dock and rig.

One night on of the roustabouts came barreling down the gang plank with his duffle bag. This was around 12 midnight.

Hey John, where you headed with your bag?

I'm gone.

That was it.

Dude was walking. From Fourchon. Middle of the night. No one ever talked to him again.

coyote up northwest of Jal New Mexico that would eat out of my hand.

After taking two serious kicks I fired the mud man. He was really skinny and about 6’5” tall.

About 30 minutes later a short squatty guy came up to me and said, “you de one dat fired my brudder?”

I said “I fired the mud man “

He said, “Dats my brudder and so f’k me too, I quit”.


Another time going out to relieve my alternate I saw a big box marked for the rig and told the dock hand to put it on the chopper.

Got to the rig and told them unload it from the bird and take it down to the pipe rack with the crane. I went into the office and my alternate was yelling and raising hell with the warehouse wanting to know where the new bit was and he was really loud. I told him it’s on the pipe rack, I brought it. He continues yelling at the shore base and I told him I brought it.

He said hold on then asked me “what?” I repeated, I brought it.

He then said, “ well what’s all the f’kn yelling about?”

Too many stories to mention.

Workover rig was busting ass on a round trip. Me and the head cementer were talking in his company pickup when a stick of drill pipe got away and slid down the ramp punching a hole in the truck bed.

Time to move,worm.

Jal, now there is a garden spot.

Many moons ago I had a hand call me from the field.

"Bossman, I need hazard pay."
"Uh, WTF, over?"
"You know that old mattress under the trees off XX road?"
"Yeah, been there for years. So what?"
"Just saw two drunk Natives fuqqing like wild dogs on it, and I don't get paid enough for that [bleep]."
"Understood...send me the req."

I was at the Exxon getting gas and a raccoon fell off the roof and onto a lady’s Camry.

I seen a Blue Bird school bus goin down the road with a raccoon stuck in the pop up roof vent. Driver oblivious. I was gonna flag it down but most bus drivers are cûnts so I let it roll on.
Bus was empty, bet it was interesting when kids starting loading up.

would have a hot truck bring shine from my house in corpus out to the location for the company men.

I only worked in the oilfied about a year after high school. I had about the lowest job you can have in the oilfield, testing pipe. Didn't take me long to realize I didn't want to do that the rest of my life. Went to college and became an accountant.

Not me, but the family I worked for had a bunch of family members on a drilling rig since they owned the lease. I was told they didn't have a blowout preventer as there's not much gas around here. They must have hit a pocket of gas because there was an explosion. A couple rig hands and several family members go burned pretty bad, including a kid.

A friend was riding the blocks up in a pulling unit tower instead of climbing up. Slipped off and fell. Told the insurance company he slipped when he was climbing so he could collect work comp.

Knew a female geologist who would strip down and change clothes in the dog house in front of the rig hands. Didn't bother her at all.

G23

Drilling ahead with slow progress when the Varco swivel below the top drive started shedding pieces.

The driller was a Ole Boy called Cadillac. He got on the Gai-Tronics and in his southern drawl said “if any body out there loves me please come have a look at Mr. Varco“.

You guys would be a hoot playing Oil Rig Jobs Names Pictionary.

LMAO

🦫

Was picking up garbage that the workover crew left after working over a well on my place.

Wife picked up a rag.....it was covered in schit.

No one pumped the field that day.

They left and didn't come back.

There’s a sad stories side too like losing 7 good men in one incident which was a bizarre comedy of errors that led up to the event.

And 4 others that should have never happened but did.

Mostly good company men, but a few real Pricks.

My grandpa worked on rigs for about 50 years starting in the late 40s. Said the old
Man he started off working for was a wildcatter that would
Witch a well like you would a water well. Claimed he worked for him about 10 years and never drilled a dry hole

Another story he had is sometime in the late 40s he went to Wyoming on a rig and they got snowed in for several weeks. Said they were all eyeing this one fat guy when one of them managed to shoot a couple cow elk

What?

Those hotshot drivers have no regards for the rules. They were my favorite. Booze? You got it. Had a Mexican fella driving a Dodge dually that’d deliver anything you wanted. Period. You name it and he’d show up with it. Had a running joke that if you paid him enough, he could deliver a pusher worth a shït and some paid days off.

Bout sums it up for me. Only did a couple years in Aus and NZ. Offshore and onshore.. Offshore way better!

One time on the Maersk Valiant, Aus NW Shelf in 1990 just pulled out of hole when I topped the v-door. Pulled out the bit and sub and didn’t put hole cover on right away! Plank of wood with crescent wrench about five foot from hole, just as I got to the top bit-sub falls over, hits wrench which flies up and straight down the hole👀

I turned round and walked straight back down. Couldn’t fish it so milled it. When we circulated bottoms up I went to the shakers and picked up the bits of the wrench I could find, winder and a couple fragments, gathered them up and presented them to the driller “ want your Crescent back”🤣. Lucky he had a sense of humor.

Was on the Harriet field.

Worked for a company that had radios on every rig and you could hear the morning report from most of the rigs. When waiting for cement to dry, it was abbreviated WOC in the log book, but when calling in the report, it was 'fu_king the dog'. The company hired an office woman that learned to take the reports, so instead of 'fu_king the dog' it was changed to 'chasing the dog'. One day one of the drillers forgot while giving the report and said x number of hrs 'fu_king the dog'. Woman never said a thing.

Our rig report was next and when our driller asked the lady how things were going, she replied, "Well, I found out what happens when yall catch the dog".

Geronimo line was tied to a tree on a land rig. Saw a derrickman ride it down one day, but he forgot or either didn't know how to slow it down..... hit that tree and had to be going 40 mph. He lay there a while, but was all right.

Had 2 fellows bickering all the time. One day one of them went to the porta-potty. Now the potty had no bottom. We just dug a hole and filled it in at the end of the job. The other fellow tied the door shut with a rope, hooked his truck to the rope and pulled the porta-potty down the rig road a couple hundred yds, porta-potty bouncing like a rubber ball. Cut the rope loose from the truck and drove off.... never saw him again. We cut the rope and let the fellow out of the potty, he left, gonna kill the other guy. Never saw him again, either. Didn't hear about any killings, so not sure what happened.

Had a shallow nitrogen blowout in western Ok., just before daylight one morning. Hard north wind blowing and the emergency slide was on the south side of the floor. Emptied hole over the crown, made a hell of a mess, about 2 1/2' of mud on the drill floor. Counting hands and 1 was missing, so we were wading thru the mud, trying to find him. After a while, somebody said here he comes and sure enough, he was walking back across a field, headed to the rig. When asked what happened, he said when it started to blow, he slid down the slide and ran. As long as it was raining mud, he kept running. Trouble was, he was running south and the wind was blowing south. He ran to the highway and a truck almost hit him as he crossed the road. The highway was 3/4 mile away.

One afternoon while on the rig in Ok, saw 6 tornadoes at one time, from the drill floor.

On a bad muddy location in N. La. one time and a new Thunderbird drove up. Fellow driving would push mud until it would go no further, back up and go around the pile and start pushing again. Finally got to the rig, older fellow got out and was wearing a suit. Waded thru mud, walked up steps to drill floor, washed off pants and shoes with water hose, hosed off floor and recoiled hose. Came up to top dog house and introduced himself. We talked a while and he left, wading thru the mud to the car and pushing up piles of mud as he drove away. A few weeks later, things had dried out and they had put white rock on the location. Up drove a new Lincoln. the same fellow got out, and came up to talk. When asked about cleaning up the Thunderbird, he just said, "It was too dirty to clean up, so I traded it for the Lincoln".

Was working offshore, doing a cement job. Cementing surface pipe, had finished pumping cement, and was pumping down the plug with the rig pumps. Shaker hand was suppose to open dump on shaker when the cement got back to the surface, and dump the excess cement overboard. He wanted a cup of coffee, so he left the shaker and went to the galley. Dont know how long he was there, but when the mud tanks filled with cement and it started back into the pumps, they found it. Had to dump the tanks and empty the pumps on the deck of the platform. Needless to say, he was fired.

For the Facebook crowd, I guess there is a Bakken Fail page. Supposedly there is /was good stuff on it.

Lots of crosses along the roadsides….

After 36 years on rigs of every type, there are few things I did NOT see.

Never saw cement back to mud pits.

Did see Sand traps completely filled. Had to bust up green cement.

Saw a centrifuge cemented up. Cured.

Rental company sent a tech out to look at it.

Colored guy. He pulls cover off and says “what the fug am i gonna do with that?”

Left the rig on next crew boat.

Rig crane was used to pluck a helicopter out the water.

Or what was left of it.

Small field chopper. Wind gust caught it was pilot took off. Flipped him backwards. Landed in water.
Pilot made it ok.

drained the stack so we could set the tie back.

"hey dirt, set the bolts and close the valve"

that call went unheard.

pumped a bottoms up.. driller obviously wasn't watching returns. i came down the back steps about 20 minutes later and it looked like a lake of oil.

whoopsie daisy.

Same offshore rig.... had a crane operator unloading drill collars. Wind was blowing pretty good and seas were pretty rough. Had roustabouts on the work boat, tying onto 3 collars at a time. First lift, pick the collars off the deck and then let the captain pull the boat out from under them. Instead of lowering the collars into the water to kill the swing, the crane operator headed up with them. Managed to hit a 'p' tank with the first lift, luckily it just dented it and didn't bust it open. 2nd lift, same procedure, only this time he managed to stick the collars through the cab of the other crane. They let him ride the work boat back to shore.

Had a company man come in the pipe shop I was welding for raising Hell and flapping his arms. Needed this done right fuggin stat now! Didn’t give a flying shiet what the rate was.

I cut some pipe and made a frame. Welded a sheet of 3/16 inside and hauled it out to the location where I dug two post holes and sack creted it in. About the time I was done the guy from the vinyl shop showed up to roll on the 4x8 decal that said “Absolutely no taco or burrito trucks allowed on location”.

When I got my ticket signed the pusher said a roach coach had stopped by and every swinging dick on the location was puking and shieting himself inside out for 24 hours and the whole rig was shut down.

Drilled a hole over in the Jefferson, Tx. area. RR tracks ran along side the road, but there was a curve in the road and tracks. Now trains cant turn like a car, so you could see 1/4 mile in either direction where the location road crossed the tracks. RR threw a fit and took the oil co. to court, because the location road crossed the tracks in the curve. They settled, giving the oil co. 90 days to drill, test, and plug if it was a dry hole. If they made a well, the rig had to be out by 90 days and the oil co. had to build another road into the location. The oil co. had to hire laid off RR workers to man the crossing 24/7. 3 trains a day came down that track, but every time we crossed the tracks, we had to stop and wait for the RR workers to roll down their window and wave a green flag. They also put up a 8x16 bill board that had instructions on how to stop, wait, and only cross if directed.

Drilled into the caprock at the top of a salt dome. While at shallow depth but supposedly adequate mud weight it came back north on us. Had to take out through the diverters straight to the Gulf and the atmosphere. Bubbles coming up around the drive pipe.

Sour gas.

Shutdown the Gulf from Main Pass to West of the Mississippi River included all shipping and boat traffic in and out of the river.

Twas a bad one. Got Boots and Coots on it and finally got it killed.

There were some unhappy folks to be found and didn’t have to look far to find them.

Sour gas is bad ju ju.

I worked for the company that laid the pipelines from the first 7 wells to the plant in the sour gas field south of Jackson, Ms. Down at Piney Woods, Ms. That's the place where they found a whole crew dead one morning. They didn't know the sour gas was down there and drilled into it during the night. That hole is on a hill and the well bore is contained in a small cinder block building. You could walk out into the woods around the site and see small animal skeletons all over the place.

When we were doing tie-ins at the wells or plant, there was a man with a monitor on site. If he said to go, we had to go upwind at least 200 yds and wait until he said we could come back to work. Sometimes it was a few minutes and sometimes we'd set there all day.

Not a good one.

A Bo Truc brought us out a called for coil tubing unit to do a well zone seal off and we were gonna reperforate further up hole of the well bore.

As the Bo Truc backed up to the platform he had to get in really close to the platform boat landing due to the weight of the coil tubing unit and the hydraulic pack, control cab, etc. and for the boom angle required for the production crane to safely lift it up to the drill deck.

The weather was pretty bad and the seas were rough working against the needed position of the boat

The deck hand threw one 6” rope over the platform cleat, took up slack on the boat cleat and the captain was then maneuvering to set the second rope .

While pulling against the first set rope to get squared around for setting the second, the first rope parted like a rifle shot crack and the recoil rope back to the boat hit the young deck hand and took most of his head off.

I was at the hand rail with a radio, looking down and talking to the boat captain when it happened.

We lowered the man basket and loaded the young man on it and brought him up on the platform, called the shore base to fly us out a body bag and then called for the medical chopper to come and pick him up where they delivered him to West Jefferson Hospital.

It was a sad and dour day all around and for everyone involved.

But as is typical, the job continued, restaged the boat and went on to completion,

LOl one time I was working a fishing job on a workover they had 800ft of pipe down the hole, all I had to do was send one jell swipe during my 12hr shift. They brought up a 3ft piece of pipe, the tool was stuck in it. the toolpusher tied the pipe off to the open-top skid with a chain then hook a piece of chain from the tool to the extended boom forklift to try and pull it apart but the chain kept slipping off the pipe. I watched this for about 30 minutes then walked over, there were already all the rig hands and everyone gathered around watching. I told the toolpusher, why don't you hook that pipe under the skid on the open-top instead of trying to chain it to it, so it would be braced against the tank. lol, it pulled right apart. He was damn why didn't I think of that, I went back to my truck and finished watching a movie on my laptop.

To change the tune a bit.

First week on a drilling platform in the gulf. Just learning everyone and they told me there was a guy that was pulling an extra shift. Working 7 n 7, so he was going to work 21 straight days. We worked our shift, he stayed for his shift, and when we got back, he was going to work our shift again. Found out that week that the law was looking for him and he was afraid to go to shore. Well he worked our shift and his shift again. At this time he had been out 35 days. Same thing happen again, so he had been out 49 days. He was suppose to go in on 1st chopper, but was going to pull another 14 days, when his wife called on ship-to-shore.

We had a pusher from Zwolle, La..... need I say more. If you got a ship-to-shore call, that wasn't an emergency, he would put it on the loud speaker and everyone on the rig could hear the conversation. So this is what we heard.....

Wife asked this fellow was he coming home and he told her he wasn't. She didn't hesitate a bit and said, "Just want to let you know that there's gonna be a fuqking at our house tonight and if you want to be in on it, you better get here". And, she hung up the phone.

In just a few minutes, the fellow was sitting on the heliport steps, bag in hand, waiting on the 2nd chopper.

He never came back, so we dont know if he got another job or the law got him.

We were drilling a hole near Winnsboro, La and there was a local guy on the rig. Great hand and funny as all get out. One day his wife and her mother drove up on location and the fellow walked out to talk to them. The women never got out of the truck and he was standing there talking to them and pointing down at the ground. He'd talk and then point, talk then point. This went on for 10 min. or so and finally the women left. Asked the fellow was everything ok and he said it was. Then he went on to explain that the women were fixing to kill a hog and he was explaining to them how and where to shoot the hog. He said the last one they shot, they made a bad shot, the hog broke out of the pen, and it took him a couple of days to get close enough to shoot the hog and kill it. Didn't want to have to go thru that again.

Same fellow worked derricks and Winnsboro, La. back in those days was cotton country, so we would see crop dusters all the time. We were pulling pipe one day and he was up on the board playing like he was an airplane. We pulled up another stand, broke it out, and set it back, but he didn't unlatch it. We looked up and there he was, hanging by the safety harness, about 75' or so up in the air. We slung the air hoist line to him and pulled him back up to the board. When asked about it, he just said, "I crashed". Never bothered him a bit.

Hahah

Zwolle Tamales.

Worked with a couple over the years from there.

Strange birds.

Bunch of good times too.

You spent enough time with guys, you knew exactly how to push their buttons.

I was rig welder. So if nothing was pressing i could roam around the rig. Fuggin with everyone. Hands be mad as hell. 😂

I built a new metal box once for a Jacobs ladder, they were too cheap to buy a fiberglass replacement.

Roustabouts painted it up and placed were they wanted on deck. I tacked it down.

Had a roustabout named Hotrod. Colored guy. Always lying about something.

I worked with an electrician that was a lot like me. Always stirring up chit.

He got in that box. Closed the lid. I was standing beside it.

Hotrod rounds the corner. Trap is set. 🤪😂. I threw my hard hat down. Looking mad.

He said what’s wrong Ivey ? I said Hotrod. You ain’t gonna believe this. You know this box i built? Yeah... you know that y’all just painted it up nice? Yeah.....

Some sorry mutha fugger has put trash all in it...

He couldn’t stand it. Runs over and flips the lid open.

Out comes the electrician. 😂🤪😂😂😂.

I’ve never seen a colored guys eyes get so big.

Hotrod story #2

We were crew changing out of Cameron.

He road back to MS with me. I always would cut through Holmwood and hit the interstate in Iowa.

Quicker but 2 lane roads.


We come through one morning on the cut through road.

Chit you not. Cattle drive. Men on horseback were moving cattle from pasture down the road.

Took a few mins to pass.

To make up time i skint her back. I knew wouldn’t be any troopers in that road.

Forgetting were i was, i hit a raised RR crossing. It was built up higher that the road.

Dukes of hazard style. We jumped it. Come off the ground.

In mid air, in slow motion 😂. Hotrod looks at me, says “chit Ivey, you wouldn’t gonna stop were you?”
Hell nah Hotrod. We headed home.

He was pale white for a little while.

One of our guys was coming from Lafayette down to Venice for his hitch. It was about 3:30 am and he was in New Orleans on the elevated part by the Superdome to cross over the bridge to the West Bank when a naked, badly beaten woman ran out in front of him and he stopped. She was incoherent, yelling and pretty much gone crazy saying a black man had robbed her, beat her and raped her then dumped her out on the road to please help her.

He took her and went down to the Saint Charles exit and found a police cruiser. She told them that he had raped her. They arrested him and booked him in jail in New Orleans. Of course he was a no show at the heliport.

I got a call about noon time from him, in jail, trying to explain what happened. Our company lawyers were in New Orleans and I called them to go see what they could do.

Two lady cops later that evening at the hospital got the woman to tell them what really happened. The lawyer got him out and drove him down to Venice. His truck was impounded.

I told the poor bastard to take a company car and go home and settle his business and he did.

When he came back to work 2 weeks later he caught hell from the guys. If they paged him on the PA system they’d ask, “would the rapist please pick up” or “ladies’ man, pick up “.

No good deed goes unpunished.

One thing that made laugh. I drove by a dog house one day and under the window someone wrote “kissing Booth”

Best thread I've read in a while, guys.

Only understood about 2/3 of it, but sounds like home...

That made me laugh out loud !!

The holidays could be lonely out there. Esp the ones that had littles ones.


We were in the Bollinger shipyard in Fourchon during Thanksgiving.

Couldnt leave the rig. That was a can of worms.


Talked OIM into letting me, mechanic, and electrician to let us run to Galliano Walmart.

We bought 6 or 8 turkeys, and a turkey frier. Guy from lockport had his wife meets us with another cooker.

Shipyard was closed for Turkey day. Shipyard forman left us a fresh propane bottle on the dock.

3 of us knocked off about 2 that day. Fried turkeys that afternoon for everyone. Galley made all the other fixings.

Good times

Had a cook quit while working offshore, so the 1 cook and 2 galley hands were doing the best they could. We were working nights and a work boat showed up and radioed they had a cook for us, but he was drunk. So we lowered the basket and he threw his bag in it, but wouldn't get on. Capt. radioed that he wouldn't ride the basket up, but would swing in on the ropes. Ok! Capt. backed the boat to the ropes, cook grabbed a rope and mistimed the swell. When he pushed off, the boat went down, so he didn't go anywhere. The Capt., seeing the man's feet off the deck, gunned the boat and got it out of the way. The cook fell into the water and the thrust from the boat washed him all the way thru the platform and out the other side. Work boat had to go around and get him. We lowered his bag back down and told the Capt to take him back to shore.

Fun stuff on Drilling rigs. I was a welder so got to know a few of the hands. When ya went to a new rig, the introductions in the dog house were great. On a rig in the Red Desert of Wyoming , they Introduced me to the driller, he had his back to me, said here is Ghost . Damn he turned around and I was looking at the grim reaper. He was 6'2 tall skinny and had long white hair and white beard. The other driller was [bleep]. All I ever heard him called. My neighbor is called Big rig. He is 6'8 in weighs about 350. Not because he is big but he always said he was going to drill on the biggest land rig. He did .

Everyone in the oilfield had or has a nickname.

I’m with a Brazos, I don’t understand any of the terminology on this thread, but I can’t stop reading!

talking about choppers,i was sitting on long beach ,on Vancouver \Island , Sedco 135F was drilling offshore, a 206 was flying parts out to the rig . 1 piece was a drill core about 8 " in dia 6 feet long , it slipped out of the strap just as he flew over the beach and it landed in about a foot of water about 50 ft in front of me . Some scrambling from the airport and rigging people, fortunatly nobody was hit as the beach was well used.

norm

green roustabout came offshore.

first hitch on the rig.

You tell he was nervous. Everyone is the first time.


New guys sleep on top bunk. Couple days into the hitch, just when hid nerves were settling down.

During the night, a water line burst, just happened to be over his bed.

Imagine being a green hand, and being woken up from a dead sleep by water.

Kid grabbed his life jacket, screaming WE'RE SINKING!!

they finally calmed him down.

Tell one on myself....

Pushing tools on a land rig in Ok. It was a camp job and we worked 7 n 7. Company we were drilling for had rented 2 crew trailers and a cook trailer. Cooks and galley hands worked just like we did. One of the cooks and his galley hand quit one night. I got on the phone the next day and was raising hell with the company that supplied the trailers and cooks. One man couldn't stay up 24/7, we had to have a cook and galley hand ASAP. Was told there would be one there the next day.

Well that didn't happen, so I was on the phone threatening to run them off, get another company in there, and whoop someones ass if that's what it took. Lady said the boss would be out the next day to see me and please not do anything until I talked to him. Ok.

The next day a car drove up and out got one of the biggest men I had ever seen. He came to my trailer, introduced himself, and said he owned the company that supplied the trailers, and asked if he could see the trailers and talk to the cook. Told him yes. He was gone for a few minutes and then asked me to come to the cook trailer. We sat down with the cook, had a good talk, the big man was polite, cordial, and apologized for the problems. The cook said he would stay, but he needed help, right away. Big man said he would have someone there that day, and he did.

Oh, by the way, the big man was Dusty Rhodes, the wrestler.

Which rig.... Penrod or Merco. I was on the Merco rig one time, just visiting. Never did see the Penrod rig.

"stand of 8” from the board tryin to latch up".

"Saw a derrickhand come down the Geronimo line"

"Geronimo line" and "8 inch." Oil field slang. Since I haven't worked in an oilfield, I don't know what you are talking about.

Stand of 8"..... 8" drill collars. usually 2 3/16" bore so the stand (3 joints still screwed together) weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of 14000 lbs. When you let one of them get out of control, it's not good.

Derrickhand and Geronimo Line.... When tripping pipe, the derrick hand is the one that works up in the air, by himself. There is a safety cable (Gerinmo line) attached to the monkey board and is anchored somewhere away from the rig. Attached to this cable is a safety device that goes around the cable and has a "T" bar to sit on. There is a spring loaded hand brake. If you have to evacuate the board quickly, instead of climbing down the ladder, you set on the T bar, push on the handle and that releases the brake, gravity will take you down the cable. As you near the ground, you pull on the hand brake and you can slow down and/or stop.

This vid shows a Geronimo line in use.

Doing groceries on the Black Sea.
Head Cook got like 3 cases of snickers bars he plans on selling in the Galley.
Bought on the sly with company funds.
Dude had himself some little on the side schit going on.

Not normal grocerie procedure going down elevator frighing safety sensors on it fugged up.
So we got a big ole human chain going from the deck down 4 levels of stairs.
Everyone of all types maritime to drill side.

I'm opening the conex and 1st in the line after landing it.

Ohhhhhhh snickers bars.....
Filled up my pockets with about 12 outta the 1st case.
Bring some up to my crane operators after.
3 empty cases made it to the galley.

Turned into the great snickers bar caper.
Only people that were pizzed about it were the head cook and the guys waaay down the line passing on empty cases of snickers bars.

Bout 2 days later over the PA I'm called up to the OIM and the Captain to give my version of the great snickers bar caper.
The Captain is mad.
The OIM is checking the block mad and keeping the captain stifled.
My whole counterpoint was the head cook selling em in the gallery using company funds.


Next day I run into the OIM on deck

We are both Laughing our azz,s off about it when he asks me to tell him how it really went down.
Then says I got 2 of those candy bars from a pumphand that was in that line also.

👍👍👍😄😄😄😄

It’s a whole new language and makes it easy to mess with green hands.

Once sent a guy from the doghouse to the pusher to the company man to the mud engineer to MWD to the DD and back to the co man trying to get a box of toolfaces that the driller had ordered. Everybody was in on it and just kept sending him in circles. Got him again a couple days later with the key to the v door.

Didn’t have the heart to send him to talk to the mud logger. Makin somebody talk to a mud logger is a step too far.

Dad and I did location work...so we got around them some.


Musta been a completion or maybe it was a workover....I can't remember.

They had just repowered the rig with a new 60 series and a total fresh coat of paint.

Looked and ran nice.


The next day we went back and there was a kid cleaning the derrick with a pail of diesel and a stiff bristled brush.

Oil every place. It was still set up....he was way up there...swinging in the cold ass breeze.


Nobody wanted to talk about it.

We had a mud room head honcho type.
Refused to move up the foodchain and get out of the mud room.
Didnt wanna be on drill floor as a AD or be A driller in the heat or have to work hard physically, treat his pumphands like schitt...
Pissed alot of roughnecks and pumphands off that were wanting to move up and gain experience as a pumphand or mud room head honcho in mud room ops.
All part of their carreer progression.
I used to get tasked doing bags in the mud room every so often.
Fugging hated that schit 12 hours of lifting and feeding, basically stationary the entire time...

Dude was about 50.
Looked like skeletor just released from Auschwitz.
Trying to sell amway and diet pills from some website all the time in the break area, smoke room, galley...
Was in their one time smoking, he comes in.
Bout 15 of us in their.

He starts in on his selling schit.
Again......
Everyone is talking prior and then we all go silent.
Get a hint dickhead your schitt is falling on deaf ears...
He just keeps on and on and on...

I looked at him and said give us a f uc king break we dont wanna hear your bullschit.
Hey says you are a just rostabout you cant talk to me like that.

I look at him and laugh.....

I say you are a prick who is lazy holding up young guys from moving up. why dont you transfer to another rig and get the f uc k off this one.
Bout a 10 second round of silence.
Priceless....

Then drill floor types just cut loose on his azz.
Fugging hammering him about staying stagnent on purpose.
All they needed was a chance for someone to break the ice on skeletor.

That dude was fughing hated on the DD II.
Only people he could start that selling schit on was new 3rd party people and they caught on fast also.

SOP was just go into silent Bob mode on him.

During morning pre op briefing.
He would get up on his little mud room brief.
Even when the mud room wasnt doing schit...
Everyone from toolpusher and company man on down would just go into f u c k me mode having to hear him.....
Not to mention hearing him over the PA calling out mudweights during drilling ops when he was in all his glory.

roust·a·bout
/ˈroustəˌbout/
Learn to pronounce
noun
noun: roustabout; plural noun: roustabouts
an unskilled or casual laborer.
a laborer on an oil rig.
NORTH AMERICAN
a dock laborer or deckhand.

Thank you.....
I know things like this count ...


I spelled the word career wrong too.
Just noticed it.🤔🤔🤔
Leaving it their for you to pick up on I hope!!!

😄😄😄🤪😄😄😄😄😁😄😄😄😄

Wanna know how much a lowly roustabout made 40 straight time after leaving the GOM and crossing the Greenwich Meridan line going international on the Black Sea???
1.5 and 2.0 thru 84hrs was pretty good also.....


😁😁😁😄😄😄😄👍👍👍

Don’t give a rip about the spelling, I just copied and pasted from Google. Didn’t know what a roustabout was, figgered others dint neither, so offered the definition as a service.

👍👍👍😄😄😄

A jack of all trades from maritime to drilling ops.
3rd party work.
But also a API certified rigger on all things on a oil rig.
Assigned to deckpusher/crane crew was primary role.
From simple drill pipe to a 35 ton top spool.
Casing
Riser
BOP lifts.
Subsea infrastructure lifts.
And everything in between associated with drill op tools and 3rd party tools and resupply ops.

All a normal day, but always different.
Entry level job is what it is.
Homie did it for 3 yrs as a 49 to 52 yr old.
Making the youngsters look bad at times.
Was put in charge of fabrication projects COG,s for rigging and lifts on a 75 mil project when cutting off our Derrick in Palermo to get under bridge into Black sea at Istanbul and then putting it back on in Constanta Romainia.
Anything that went on and off that rig got my hands on it to fly.
None of the other roustabout,s wanted the responsibility of that or dealing with Siclian or Romainian dock or crane crews daily.
Or Norwegian or Danish bracing fabrication crews.
Not banging my drum, but alot more involved than just mopping the deck.
Paid off a schit load of bills .
Got financially GTG
Retired from civilian world at age 52.

👍👍👍👍



About 3 weeks ago Transocean sent me an email outta the blue asking me if I would be interested in employment again.
( hell no)
Homie is 58 now...
And dont need to work...


Told slumlord about it.

Mandatory C19 vaccination aside I decided to play a game.

Did their application
Asking for experience.
Blah blah blah
Just gave em my old employee ID number and reference DD II GOM and Black sea job evals.

Resume attachments I sent them this.




I schit you not ...
Their recruiter sent me back a email.
Said basically
All joking aside we have positions available to fill and you just need to go thru the hiring process again and go to the 2 week offshore course....

Sent him back.
All joking aside the C19 shot is pitiful and I aint running around with 20 somethings anymore.....
Have a nice day....


👍👍👍😄😄😄😄😄

Worked with a dude.

We’ll Call him “Willy”.

By the time i worked with him he was in his late 50’s.

He was a roustabout. Done made the rounds at other positions. By then he was on the down hill slide. Waiting out his time.

Original “legacy” hand with the company. 3 digit employee #.

Not him, but other hands would tell of back on the days of paper payroll checks he would sit on checks for awhile.

Longer enough the company’s main office would call him, “ Willy, go cash your Payroll checks so we can get our books right”.

Cool old dude. Help you any way he could.

More to him that he told though. I think he had oil / gas wells.
He was from many, la area.

One day we were talking about fishing. Shootn the chit.
Tolendo Bend came up.

Willy says I got a couple lots on the water over there... ain’t been to them in years.

I tell ladies my cock is too big to wear a rubber. They always believe me.

Throwing chain

I just remembered Bob B. Bond and Ricky Bobby. I’ll be back later to tell their stories. This is a placeholder so I don’t forget.

Enjoying the thread. I had a part time gig watching a work over rig 30+ years ago when the guy that had the job wanted to watch his son play basketball. I worked for the guy before when he owned a bowling alley/bar. It was easy money. I'd sit in a trailer, heat up my dinner I brought, and read a book. In the winter I'd have to start up the D8 and the rig engine every two hours and run them for 15 minutes. Worked out to the time between commercial breaks on the tv in the trailer.

Watching the guys work when they were running late, I can say they earned their money.

My younger sister worked for a fishing tool company for many years.

That is freaking scary.

Oh yeah, and DJ. Driller extraordinaire. Well, for two weeks, at least. That was how long it took him to get bumped all the way back to floors.

My favorite was watching the boys who’d come up on the ST-80 trying to figure out tongs. One of the rigs I was on had a busted torque gauge on the tongs. Rather than fix it, we just called the pusher up whenever we had to use the tongs to “eyeball” it.

Another one of those situations where I always figured we’d back out of a BHA, but it never happened, surprisingly.

Nothing to it..... there they were making up a joint. 30' drill pipe in mouse hole. Pull up the string, set the slips, break off the kelly, swing it over to the joint in the mouse hole. The chain is wrapped clockwise if you pull from the bottom. Pulled chain to screw pipe in mouse hole onto kelly and torque with tongs. Take lead tongs and put on tool joint of string, wrap chain counter clockwise, stab the joint you just made up, throw chain up on top, that will make up the pipe, torque with tongs, pull slips. Wash floor and get ready to do it again.

This is what it looks like when you trip pipe back into the hole....

The title of that last video is wildly inaccurate.

Yep! But it's the best one I could find to show what it's really like, or how it use to be.

I've got a niece and her husband is a driller for some company. We were talking about rigs and he said I wouldn't recognize a modern rig. No derrick man, a machine does it. 90' mouse holes, just about all top drives, power tongs all the time. Bits that last for weeks instead of days.

Was a True Drilling rig in the Red desert of Wyoming.

Gawd...
It would have been awesome to wear jeans and a tshirt off shore like those guys on that land rig in the clip.
Their ppe, helmet , light gloves, eye pro.
Prob reg steel toe boots.

Go up on that deck on the GOM.
Summer
Ocean flat as a mirror.
0 breeze.
Bout 125° with the radiant heat from the metal being baked all around you.
Wearing fire resistant coveralls, new ones not washed a dozen times were the worst.
Always held onto your worn out thread bare ones.
Armoured gloves O dextrity with those things
Armoured boots frankenstien specials
Helmet
Eyepro.


Bout miserable during days.
Waiting for mid hitch crew change to go to nights.
Always end on nights before the bird back to land.


Excellent money.
But you most def earn it.

Watched a little fat company man fall into the reserve pit while trying to straighten plastic on the edge. Had to pull him out with a loader. He lost a boot and his hard hat.

I also watched the same guy (company hand) try and chase a calf off location. He about had it pushed through the fence but the little steer turned and put the run on him. As the rotary table turns… these are the days of our lives.

Rene, back in the day, hard hat, blue jeans, socks, underwear, and steel toed boots, was summer work clothes. Rode the elevators to the monkey board and back. Always turn one joint pin up in the v door at relief time.

I forgot the cloth dot gloves

The BarX Road is where I learned why everybody in WY has two spare tires! LOL

Yep ,LOL

You’d enjoy watching a little gizmo called “Floor Hand” do its things. Had it on my rig in Brazil drilling in the Campos Basin.

It was strange to drive by a rig working coal bed methane holes around Durango, Colorado and see no one up in the Derrick.

Almost any redundant task can be automated and approximately 70% of all work in the USA is redundant tasks. At the basic level all you need is a Domain Expert, a Programmer and training on the joy sticks. It’s come to drilling’s business full speed. About any top drive rig can be modified very close to being fully automated.

An interesting read on what is coming and already here is “The Future of Work “ by Jeremy Rifkin.

Had a couple of friends that worked oil field in their younger days, lots of fist fights they told me

Drinking doghouse coffee made your scalp tingle.

Biggest bullfrog I've ever seen rode the cement slurry out of a mouse hole that had been abandoned for a long time. Cut off the pumper and went to catch it and it jumped over my head. Sailed about 40 feet in 2 jumps into the pond. Lost champion.

Back in the day, in our part of the country, most all the old rigs had DC generators. Plug in a AC percolator and it would make coffee, but it burned out the timer. Let it purc until you could 'smell it out the door' was the recipe.

A Audit Team, Man and woman, from our main office showed up at our shore base unannounced to do a security audit on our Oil and gas sales points (The cash registers).

All of that documentation was kept offshore in the control rooms on the platforms where the sales points were located for the government folks (MMS) to see when they arrived unannounced on our platforms, their royalties are 1/6th..

There were 8 platforms with 6 different sales points. We left the shore base on the morning boat that hauls ass and trash mostly and emergency items for the drilling rigs’ needs (4 operating rigs in the field) and seas were up and it was rough. The boat unloads at each platform based on priority. Our presence was low priority.

It took several hours to make all of the platforms and we were bobbing around. Those 2 folks were deathly ill from seasickness and very pale, I think both puked up their azzholes.

When came time for us to board the first platform and the man basket was on deck of the boat, I got on waiting for those two.

The woman said “f’k this scchitt and f’k you too, were going back to dry land” so without looking at any documentation and never boarding any platform we road the boat back to Venice.

She got off the field boat went straight to their rental car and never said ‘Adios’. The man did the same.

3 weeks later the results of the audit arrived in the company mail and all items were marked as being “Stellar “.

My boss was amazed with kudos, etc. as was our Lafayette office saying it was great to know that our cash registers were in such good hands and under praiseworthy stewardship.

After all of that I went in my boss’ office and told him what really happened. That man bout pissed on himself laughing . He told our big honcho the lowdown and he did the same, laughing .

I was asked to write up a “Procedure for How To Prepare For An Audit”. That never got completed.

The armoured gloves were actually pretty nice except for dexterity issues at times.


I gave slumlord a pair long ago.
Cross between some storm trooper and moto cross stuff is the best way I can describe em

Handling cutting tools after casing cutting to direction drill and mag tools to clean out all the metal after pulling out of the hole
Those gloves were worth their weight in gold handling those tools.

I cant imagine using light cloth gloves or even regular leather ones to keep from getting metal splinters in your hands.
Even with the armoured gloves splinters would eventually work thru.
Toss em at end of shift they was so embedded with metal shavings.
Saved alot of cuts from slings also.

Mine was offshore Caspian Sea as a construction manager, Kashagan is the project that I was seconded to, also known as cash-a-gan... My office was on a ship and my residence was on a long retired Russian cruise ship, the Schotov. Muster point the second level of the Grande Ballroom. A lot of story of this ships play for Russia during the Cold War... Here it is stuck in the annual freeze. We wore colds suits that we would survive as we bounced off of the ice...

A small one off the island we built from the 'copter.



Home. Big O&G projects flat kick azz.

Worked drilling rigs a little during the first Bakken "boomlet," around 1980. One of my two stints was during the winter in northeast Montana, close to NoDak. During winter that's is pretty cold country, even on "nice" days, and the crew often brought canned stuff to eat, which we'd heat up by putting the cans on top of the diesel generator engines.

It was boom times for a year or two, when just about anybody who showed up in the local "employment offices" (meaning the right bars in Sidney) could get hired. A kid with no previous experience got hired as worm, and he was pretty intrigued when guys came back to the doghouse with HOT cans of pork-and-beans, chili, beef stew, etc. One guy explained about the diesel "microwave," and the kid ran out with a can of beans, then came back in the eat his sandwich.

A couple minutes later we heard a good little boom, and yep, he hadn't punched a hole in the top of the can, so it exploded.

Like a little puppy following along behind.

I have worked my adult life in the gulf. There are lots of characters, liars, and stories.

Used ta love fall bird migration.
Oil rig stop offs for birds.
Hawks would have a field day coming down outta the derrick.
90 95 miles off shore in the greene canyon coming to hunt the rig weeks at a time.
Find bird heads on the deck all the time.

Death island.....
LOL!!!

That would be neat. Raptors are awesome

Who was the falconer guy that used to post raptor videos here?
Those were cool.
A Utah dude I think?

When we pulled up our sea anchors( hellava job doing that) to un azz the GOM and cross the alantic, 36 days to Gilbralter behind a ocean going tug doing 6 to 7 knots....
Brought plenty of smokes for that leg.

We pulled up the starboard aft anchor.
Flushed up a huge black and white manta ray from somewhere around the pontoon and moon pool.

Thing was like 20 ft wing tip to wing tip.
Huge Ray circled the rig a couple of times just below the surface.
Big show for everyone to see.
Never seen anything like that in my life.
Pretty cool Mr Manta Ray but your hang out is leaving in a couple of days.

Some of the schit you see coming up from the bottom pulling those last risers and stacking em in the riser bay is pretty wild.
Jules verne 20,000 leagues under the sea stuff.
BOP,s when ya have to pull em( huge Pita) are covered with some funky looking bottom dwelling things also.



Little jelly fish in the black sea sucked doing mooring ops to put our derrick back on at the dock.
Myself and a driller named Ryan with one of the 2nd mates in one of the 2 fast boats getting stung by em rigging up cribbing bracing and 6 inch rope to the pontoons.
Another crew in the other boat doing the same and getting stung by em

Barnacles on the pontoons were a issue that day also.
Had diver teams come in and deal with that crap weeks later.

We were stacked outta Fourchon. South Tim whatever. Boneyard.

I forget. Maybe 10-15 miles out. You could see the lights of fourchon at night.

Pickup cell service from town.

Saw something floating, looked like a log. Til it got closer.

Gator.

Doubt he made it back to freshwater.

Ren50,

I’ve seen schools of manta rays. Cool looking. Gliding through the water.

Big sea turtles. Hammerheads. Never saw the great whites that roam the GoM. 🤣

1st and only time I ever seen one.
It was frighing cool as heck.

[quote=goalie]

I was talking to Toot. Are you one of his fish camp buddies?

Riding belts and spider baskets.

Didn’t care for either.

Least you had control of up / down in spider basket.



Me replacing the hull. Cut it out. Tack new plate it. Hull was warped to hell. 30+ yrs old. Have to work all the way around with dogs. Weld inside. Back gouge outside. Weld.

Riding belt you were at the mercy of another. Usually not even line of sight.

We P&A’d wells on old platform. All the usual stuff. Cut drive pipe below mud line. Go to pull it. Wont budge. Hung up at bell guide in plus 10. I go down to split the guides. In riding belt. Feet in the water. Hand up on rig hollering about the giant barracudas. 😂🤪

I was talking to you.

I'll take that as yes. 😉

Take it anyway you want to. Why dont you get your head out of your ass and post something constructive. You're not funny, haven't posted anything that anyone is interested in. All you want to do is spread schit. Of course, it's the internet and there is always a need for wannabe internet badasses. So have your fun.

Well, if the lying sack of shiit would answer yes or no, I'd move on.

Until the, have fun at Fish camp. Don't forget to double mask.

😉

There you go again....

Had friend in the dozer business that was getting all a companys rigups. I said you must be giving away a lot of whiskey. No, he was saving a lot of money buying something way better. VIAGRA

Old man I had heard stories of H2S and dead crews, nothing really specific. Like to hear more. Get it sometimes now in the coal game but nothing like oilfield.

1984 on NW Shelf they evacuated Sedco 600 back to Karratha, supposed to come to us on the Energy Searcher but went to the mainland instead. Apparently lot of H2S on testing. We used to test for it, and I remember one driller asking if we had any when we had twist offs and some etched pipe, but nothing showed up.

You were 100% correct.

I was being a dick clogging up other threads with unrelated BS.

I sincerely apologize. Double for the unwarranted double mask jab. (Sincere, but "jab" pun intended)

Goalie I think your funny and your posts about Miss Toot are very entertaining. Please continue…

I wasn't there when it happened, I was working for the pipeline company that laid the lines from the first 7 wells to the plant.

Shell had a rig drilling south and east of Piney Woods, Ms. in the late 60's or early 70's. I was there in the summer of '72. I was told the day crew drove up to the rig, the kelly was drilled down, everything seemed normal, except they didn't see any of the hands. When they looked about the rig, they found the morning crew dead. Some on the floor and some around the mud tanks. What they found had happened was the morning tour crew had drilled into the H2S. It was concentrated enough to kill all of them. By the rig continuing to run, when the kelly drilled down and couldn't go any further, it was just circulating from the bottom of the hole. By the time the day crew got there, the bad gas was circulated out. Halliburton came in, plugged the hole, and a small cinder block building was built around it. I never saw in the building, so I dont know what was in there, but I imagine they had a tree of some sort.

Shell built a plant out in the middle of nowhere and continued to drill holes in the area. As I said before, I worked for the pipeline company that laid the lines from the well to the plant.

At that time, I had never had any experience with sour gas. Having heard how bad it was, I circled around in the woods near the location site. When I got to the downwind side, on the night it happened, there were small animal skeletons laying all over the place, for at least 200 yds from the hole.

Thanks for the apology and if I said anything that was out of line, I'm sorry for that also.

You didn't, so no need.