Offshore Engineer: 10/7/07

All,

I have take an office job and will be flying a desk for a while, thanks to all those who have enjoyed the rants.......The new blog starts tomorrow.

The offshore engineer shal return in a diffirent capacity.

Regards

The times they are a changing - East meets West

With an increasing number of service companies employing workers from outside the UK the workforce in the North Sea is changing all the time. Africans, Eastern Europeans, Indians and others make up more of the service company offshore employees. This always makes for a multi cultural and very diverse atmosphere in the logging unit. They chat to each other in their pidgin and misunderstand each other, become more and more frustrated at each other and gradually wind each other up. Eventually they break and the ensuing argument and apology is as a result understood less and less. There is then a knowing glance or smile which lets the other know that above all else this is an apology and even if it all sounds like a face saving appeal and an attempt to get one up it all stays inside the cabin. The flipside to all this is that friendships are hard forged. It is a very cold and sterile environment and trying to get other to understand where you belong outside the unit and off the rig is often difficult and not possible in most cases.
The other amusing side to all of this incoming culture is the report writing and the grammatical errors that occur. These turn any dull morning report into a reason to smile and show a few teeth. Always good to alleviate the tension in this type of situation.

Downtime and WOW (waiting on weather)

Storm force 10 on the forecast......well that’s what is predicted for this location by the met office. Forecasts are treated like gold. They are never questioned if they are within 36hours. This is the accuracy of the maritime forecast for the specific spot that the rig is positioned. These forecasts are paid for by the drilling contractors and I'm sure if they were at all inaccurate there would be hell to pay at the met office. If they get it wrong on TV the worst that can happen is they replay that forecast for the rest of your life(thank you Michael Fish).

Home from home

Laundry - Yes, like the name suggest, the place you get your clothes washed. First find the string bag which is in your room. Make sure this has your room number written on it in permanent marker. Fill it to the top with all that needs boiled to death and shrunk. DO NOT PUT YOUR GO-ASHORES IN THE RIG WASH. Unless you want your favourite designer label to fit your 8 year old. The bag then gets dropped off in the Laundry in the bin marked for personal gear along with your towel. The end of the shift there is either a fresh washed set of clothes for you to wear or there is a nice set of clothes to go top the charity shop. Coveralls are washed separately. First make sure you empty your pockets of all tools and pens. Place the "honest I have checked these coveralls pockets" card in the top pocket of the offending oil drenched article and toss it in the big hopper for "Work Clothes". Again make sure you have ordered coveralls that are at least 5 sizes too big for you or you will only wear them once.

Offshore Engineer

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Signing off

The times they are a changing - East meets West

Downtime and WOW (waiting on weather)

Home from home

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