Chapter Two
Truisms
Pet peeves
Rant and rave
You may be a rigger when…
TRUTH
I heard a comment the other day, which I thought, was funny because it is so true. After something goofy happens at the well site, the old guys say, "I've never see that before." While the young green guys say, "I've seen that before."
What comes after two days of tripping pipe? Answer: "Monday."
I love the mud in (not), you can gain 30 lb. and grow 4 inches in height just by walking from the doghouse to the rig floor.
Rigging is the only job where they eat your lunch and make you drink the beer that they buy.
I was in a rig doghouse the other day when I spotted a nice framed picture on the wall. It had a picture of a house on it with a white picket fence and fluffy clouds, the whole bit. On it was written: “This it's not Home Sweet Home...Deal with it!”
In another doghouse was a sign, "Your Mother Doesn't Work Here...Pick Up After Yourself, If you don’t, I will skid you and hire her.”
I was thinking that you could write all the signs you want but if the roughnecks can't read what good does it do?
SETTLING DISPUTES
Do you have problems with the staff at work arguing and fighting all the time? The political backstabbing and petty gossip? I think you should settle these things like they do on the rigs. The two fellows in conflict go behind the rig tank and duke it out. When they come back they usually have puffy faces and cut lips but their differences are resolved. No more problems. Remember that children argue, men fight!
ROAD BAN RANT
I wonder if the road bans apply to farmers or just to the oilfield equipment. The other day I was traveling east on the Duchess Patricia highway.
The road is banned to 90 % of your GVW (gross vehicle weight). I came across a tractor towing two trailers full of round bales; the skinny tires were almost flat with the weight. I would hazard a guess at the trailers being more than double the weight allowance.
I would have taken his license plate number but he didn't have one, nor lights nor flags.
I figure that the next time we have to move the rig on a banned road we will put it onto an old bale trailer and haul it with a tractor. A better Idea would be to kick out the taillights put a couple of hay bales on the deck and hang a red triangle on the back.
One thing that sort of bugs me is when someone yells, "Heads up!" I would rather they said, "Heads down!" so the object falling hits the top of your hard hat instead of right on your face.
PET PEEVES
Here are a few of my pet peeves
- Diesel trucks in the winter that use command start to start up every two hours in front of my hotel room or camp room.
- Whenever I need a hammer around the wellhead they are always at the pump and tank or vice versa.
- Lousy showers in hotels, especially the ones that mist instead of spray.
- Mustard inside my hardhat liner. Man, that burns, not to mention the hassle explaining why I have a red band across my forehead.
- Oil companies and consultants that jump over large piles of one hundred dollar bills to pick up two nickels on the other side.
- Wet trips.
- Mud
YOU MAY BE A RIGGER WHEN:
- You wash your hands before you go to the bathroom.
- Happy hour means the hour before you go home, not cheap drinks.
- Pulling rod doesn't feel good and "tripping" doesn't fee good either.
- A light supper means two bags of chips, three pickled eggs and six beers.
- You feel claustrophobic in a car.
- Pups are not small dogs
-Dognuts are not something a dog licks.
-Waitress baiting is one of your favorite pastimes.
-You will drink whiskey from a dirty thread protector but will send back a dirty fork or knife at a restaurant and give them hell.
-Ponies are not horses.
-You groan when someone mentions a 48.
- You don't have to change a tire when you have a blowout, you have change your shorts.
-The dope you get comes in 5-gallon pails.
- Your alarm clock is the diesel crew truck next door.
- The windows of the local laundry mat get blown out at least once a year.
- The pickups in town out number the cars in town 3 to 1.
- Your favorite footwear is steel-toed boots.
- All of your t -shirts and baseball caps have oilfield logos.
- The office parties you are invited to are on oily cement floors.
Dans Doghouse Stories
