Responsibilties

Keeping up your end of the deal. Holding your own tower. Taking personal responsibility for what you do. These are all important, or I feel they are all important. I have my own set of values that I have decided to live my life by. Tell the truth as often as is believably possible. Do the very best that you can.
These principles may seem a little bit archaic. In modern society there seem to be less of this ethic and a higher value placed on possessions and idols. Perhaps this is the skewed interpretation that is the result of growing older. But as I think back and remember my past and the past of the people around me I realise that we were all learning and making mistakes, not knowing how to express ourselves properly. So we lashed out, we told half truths, we isolated ourselves in a vain attempt to not be hurt and we learned from the reaction of others to our mistakes. Very occasionally we listened to our peers and elders and the advice they had to give. In fact I am still doing that, maybe a lot less than I did as a teenager but occasionally I'll say something I didn't mean to say or do something I didn't mean to do.
Everyone makes mistakes, it's what makes us human. We learn from them sometimes. Sometimes we don't. I believe the best we can do with this humanity is to stand up and say, "Yes, it was me, I fecked it up." and then ask "how do I fix it." Take some responsibility for your actions and you will always gain a little respect. Even if it is just for yourself.
Earlier this week I had a BHA to do. This is when we get equipment ready to go into the well. This is probably the most stressful part of the job. If everything works then its great for building your confidence. You connect everything together with the help of the rig crew and a finger.* Once it is all connected together then you plug into the tools and program the electronics. This takes about an hour but the difference between getting it right and getting it wrong is the difference between putting a multi-million dollar formation evaluation tool in the oil well and putting a lamppost down a hole. So there is a little anxiety associated with getting it right. There should be a little anxiety with getting it right, it is an important part of the process. While concentrating on this e-mails are flying in thick and fast. Among them an e-mail regarding correction for the logs from the last section of hole we drilled. The tone of the e-mail was sarcastic and condescending. Now needless to say this is not the type of e-mail that you really want to receive when you are trying to concentrate on the important BHA. to put it bluntly it made my blood boil. I continued to program the tools and do all my pre-drill checks. The tool went in the hole.
The ownership that I take to my work is that when something needs to be done, I do it. I am responsible for making sure everything out here runs smoothly. I check and double check my work. As I double checked my inputs into the tool I noticed a discrepancy between the serial number of the tool in the hole and the surface system. My mouth dried up, thoughts started to fly, my heart raced and a mild/medium panic started. I went to try and get a little advice and some support from town. After much to-ing and fro-ing I called town and was relieved to be told it didn't really matter. All would be fine. and the weight was lifted from my shoulders.
I asked the question. I made the mistake. I felt a little foolish. When all was said and done everything was fine. If it hadn't been fine I would have wasted about 4 hours of rig time. If I hadn't asked the question it could have been days of rig time or weeks of rig time. All because it took a little responsibility for making a mistake.

* The finger pointing engineer. the knowlege that is stored in the finger is mighty. "Please connect that to that" "Could you torque that up to 66.5kilo-pounds please." Not that noe of these are questions.

The Tea Dance

The tea dance is a ritual performed on every offshore rig in the world. It is a behavioral ritual which is observed as the hive attempts to make a cup of tea for each other. The cup is retrieved from the dispenser; the tea bag is plucked from the tin and placed into the cup. At this point worker number two approaches the cup dispenser. A sidestep to the urn as a drone replaces the box of milk in the fridge. Worker two, heads for the sweetener. 1 step back to allow the OIM into the cup dispenser. And worker 1 sidesteps in front of the urn. Step to the side to watch him fill his cup. OIM approaches the coffee taking 3 steps to the side Worker 1 steps backwards and allows access to the urn. Fill cup. Step to the side for the milk worker 3 approaches the cup dispenser. OIM leaves. Until someone thinks up a better way to arrange the Tea and coffee making facilities in the galley then this little social dance of trying to get the tea made without literally treading on toe will go on.

Queen Bee!