February Articles

Downtime and WOW (waiting on weather)

I am, as always, into “hurry up and wait” mode. The condition caused by working on a multi million dollar project. When the cost of waiting around for somebody to do something increases to a certain threshold the people who are paying the bills start to get a little twitchy. If there is nothing that can be done because, for example something has been broken, then the people onshore with there fingers on there wallets begin to ask this question. “What is happening next?” invariably followed by “Can we do anything to be ready for the next event?” This is not a bad thing planning ahead is good. Saving time and money is good. Unfortunately the end result is “hurry up and wait”. The end result means that additional pressure is put on to try and be ahead of the curve and that is usually when things get missed. People have a tendency towards panic and this is a perfectly normal response to pressure. But the truly gifted person is the one that can keep there heads while all around are losing theirs. The condition of hurry up and wait only seams to last a short while. People on the rig then settle down into “nothing worse can happen” mode. The example from this week is a broken drill line. All hands are mobilized to assist with slipping and cutting a piece of damaged drill line cable. The job takes place at a sensible pace to carry out the work safely and in the background everyone is saying “what’s next?” So we start to do some work which will get us “ahead of the curve” this involves testing some tools in our case. We get so far and the crane that is being used to fix the drill line is working right overhead of where we need to set things up. We retreat into our warm cosy cabin and wait. We sit here waiting for the drill line to be fixed asking ourselves “what’s happening next?” So the question maybe doesn’t just come from the people onshore with there itchy twitchy fingers on there wallets. Maybe it comes from every individual who has been brought up to ask the question “what’s next?” from drive and ambition to get things done and the satisfaction of getting to the end of a day and being able to say “we got something done, what are we going to do tomorrow?” so maybe the example of hurry up and wait isn’t an accurate representation of what is going on. We really aren’t hurrying up to wait we are hurrying up to get things done, to have achieved something and recognize that we have achieved something. Are we really being hurried? Or are we hurrying ourselves on? Trying to achieve by rushing. This doesn’t make any sense, to rush to achieve. Better to slow down and achieve. Then the achievement can be recognized and savored.

Zen Master Scott (from the Tao of Cox)

Home from home

You arrive out to the place you will eat, sleep live and work. You expect you will never see anything as bad as the last rig you just left. When you are handed the card and the medic says “Your on nights”
“No” you reply “I am on days, didn’t my employer let you know what we are out here to do?”
“Sorry mate, lifeboat 3, the briefing is at 08:20hrs” military time suggests you respect his authoritie!
You wonder into the cabin, stow your gear, and then go to stick your toilet bag in the head. The smell meets you as you open the door. Glancing into the shower tray you see enough mildew and mould to grow potatoes in. You dump your bag and lift the lid of the toilet seat to be met by your cabin mate’s dinner. “hmmmm”, this will be what you call home for a week or two.

Scott

International Bright Young Thing

The industry is changing. Everyone wants to maximize profit and there is a shortage of people to work offshore. This usually means getting whoever will put on a hard hat. The net result of this is a truly multicultural, multilingual crew. All of whom speak varying degrees of English( the common denominator in the North Sea). It would be tremendously bigoted of me to suggest that our Serbian mud loggers have worse English than some, but yesterday he told me that his colleague had gone for meat. This said our driller from “the Broch” has his share of problems getting the message across too. With his thick Doric it is often a good thing to ask “Sorry could you repeat that please?” to be met with “am aff fir ma tatties”.

Ghengis McCann

Mr Angry

Anger is a good thing, or so all the psycho-analysts seem to advocate. Release your anger, don't keep it in. Anger kept in will hurt and harm you. So why does it provoke such a negative response from those on the receiving end. The net result on the recipient is usually guilt, another "negative" emotion.
How does this all relate to offshore life? My example is being woken at 4 in the morning by a trainee looking for a cost estimate for our equipment over the last 24 hours. The trainee had been shown where all this information was available and had been asked for the costing at 01:00hrs in the morning. The Co-rep had been in receipt of the costing for the last week and it hadn't changed for a week. So when I was woken at 4 in the morning for this, slightly less than critical, information I felt a lot of anger. I wanted to grab the trainee and shout at him "why didn't you look at the sheet for the last week?" I felt like marching up to the co-rep and shouting "Is this really critical at this time and what makes you think it has changed today after it has been the same for the last week?" But I lay in my bed and woke up. I got dressed quickly and went down to the co-reps office and said " were you looking for the costing for today?" "Sorry about that, you would like that at midnight?" I was timid, restrained an subservient to the client, just like a good service hand should. I came out of his office carrying even more anger and guilt. So what is the solution to all of this? How should I release this anger and prevent this guilt, which is doing nothing but harm to me? Should I care less about my job?
I will probably do what I always do and bury it all. Move on to the next day. This will bring another group of problems to be solved. Will I be able to solve them all? Probably not but I will always try to and if I don't get them all done then some of them will slip till tomorrow. If I resolve not to try to solve all the problems will my anger and frustration subside? Maybe. I should just continue to do all that is in my power without taking so much on that It makes me feel ill, which is how I feel now.

Mr Angry (Scott)

Then....The wheel fell off.

Maintaining your kit when you are offshore really isn't as straightforward as it seems. Your tools and equipment are usually scattered around the rig in various inaccessible positions which require a harness, fall arrestor, tools aloft register and a good knowledge of limbo dancing. So that as you limbo between the doghouse roof* and the geolograph line* you manage to stop yourself and your toolkit from falling on the driller.
When it breaks, and something always breaks, the first question anyone will ask you is, "how long will it take to fix it?" My standard answer is "about 20 minutes". If the same person asks me again the second answer is "as long as it takes" and if someone asks me a third time they will be in a harness as fast as there arms can carry them into it. Then they will find themselves up a ladder holding a torch.
The example from today is a wheel that measures a cable which is attached to the rig. This cable moves as the rig moves and measures depth travelled into the well. The depth wheel is under constant stresses from the wire and a bunch of pulleys the wire goes through. it is held onto the rig with 2 grub screws and vibrates off more than once a hitch. Once it falls off you are knacked! Well until you get your self into the harness and limbo it back onto the rig.



*Rig equipment associated with MWD that breaks down a lot.