New Up-Starts

To all those new to the oil industry and offshore life.

STOP PISSING OFF THE EXPERIENCED PEOPLE OFFSHORE!

When you start with a new employer it is important to know your place and realise that you must start at the bottom and work your way to the top through respect, hard work, keeping your nose to the grindstone and being as helpful as you are able. You will not win friend in high places by starting your vocation with a "ooo, you don't want to do it like that" attitude. Also very unhelpful is the "well I'm not doing that", the "I think that you should do it this way" and above all "that's not how they taught us to do it in school" mantra. Remember kiddywinkles this is not school it is the real deal! This is the place where, if you pay close attention, you will learn how it has been done for years and then if you are all very good little boys and girls in about 10 years you will all be invited to stick you oar in and make things better for everyone.
That doesn't mean that you shouldn't practice your rowing early, in fact buy an oar, sit on the boat and watch how the big boys do it. By this I mean speak up when you are away ask questions like "why are you doing it like that?" or "why cant we do this instead?" and if you are really adventurous try "what if we did it like this?". For the observant in the group you will have noticed that the last three all ended with "?". This is your most effective form of punctuation as a new start add it to the end of every sentence and you will almost always get a positive response, providing you use a little common sense before it.
Above everything else do not, DO NOT, even if your life depends upon it go back into the office and start any sentences with "When I was offshore I saw........" The end of these sentences are usually something that they really don't want to here in the office and involve vast amounts of fannying about with a dozen different paper systems all of which will do very little and might even negatively effect stock prices. If you are offshore and you do see something ask a question.
You will see things offshore that look like they are a little bit odd. These guys have been doing what they do for a very long time and have all learned the hard way. Their are systems in place to help them learn from their mistakes and to let them express themselves to the town bods. Use these systems too and then you are playing the correct game and are unlikley to piss off the world. Good Luck

Angry Uncle Scott