More Random Photos From Thailand - Next Lot (1 Viewer)

[Harrytheheid]

Anyway, the other day a job came up on the same platform where the survey took place, so a transfer by personnel basket and boat was arranged.

Aye, a fine body of men – no doubt.

And so, the transfer boat approached this monster that’s actually supported on the seabed by means of the three giant legs seen here that are jacked down, then the actual body of the rig is jacked up to a suitable height – hence why this design of exploration rig is called a “Jack-Up”.

The yellow coloured “thing” at the right is the production platform where we were going. As can be seen, it’s dwarfed by the Jack-Up. Not the biggest one I've been on but certainly up there among them.

Now, that’s a long way up; about twice the height of normal transfers. It’s not that big a deal, but can be a bit scary the first few times you do it until it becomes routine. Thing is, sometimes the shackles securing the basket to the crane sling can get tangled. As the weight comes on and the basket turns in the wind the shackles can slip into place and the basket drops. It’s only a half-inch or so, but when you’re stuck up around 80ft in the air with another 40ft or so to go, it can be a bit, err, disconcerting.
When it was our turn there was me, an American Drilling Engineer pal of mine who happens to have been around Brits for the past 15 years and understands the humour, and four Indonesian Scaffolders – and it was their first trip offshore – only 2nd or 3rd time on the basket as well. So up we go, and of course, the shackles slipped. So Jim’s looking at me and with a dead-pan look, says,
“That’s strange Harry, it’s never done that before”.
“Yeah, you’re right Jim. I sure hope nothing’s wrong”.
I can safely say, I’ve never seen 4 sets of knuckles go so white so quickly before.
When we got on board, there was a scamper to the accommodation while me and Jim caught each others eye and had a wee chuckle. Shame on us? Yeah, I suppose so, but we’ve had worse played on us.

Anyway, job over and it’s time to head back to our accommodation vessel for the night. Note my attempts to look nonchalant, but if you look closely, I’m a bit white-knuckled myself. That’s a long, long, way down to that boat.

Happily, there’s some great compensations at times for being stuck out here. That evening on the chug back to our accommodation vessel, I was lucky enough to witness one of the most spectacular sunsets I’ve ever seen. This photo really doesn’t do it justice. The range of colours went all the way from scarlets to golds to the deepest blues I can ever remember.

EEK, aaaaaiiieeeee - where’d SHE come from..????
Actually, I have it on good authority that she’s mad at me for taking the camera to Thailand with me this time. Means she can’t go on this forum with more snaps of her part of our collection. One of her friends emailed me last week to relate that there’s a few photo’s on her mobile phone – but they can’t figure out how to transfer them to her laptop.
Shame that.

To be continued – maybe.

Cheers
Harry

 

[aujj65]

To be continued – maybe.

Cheers
Harry

Great pictures Harry!

So the rig actually floats like a ship and when in position is jacked up using rack and pinion gearing until the legs rest on the sea bed? So how high are the legs to start with? Interesting stuff and what do you mean "maybe"

Thanks for the FD, got it yesterday

Regards

Jeff

 

[Louis Badolato]

Great shots Heid! If that photo doesn't do the sunset justice, I wish I could have seen the real thing, because the photo is spectacular!

 

[Njja]

Wow Harry! Good thing your not afraid of heights!

What kind of a problem where you there to fix?

 

[Harrytheheid]

Great pictures Harry!

So the rig actually floats like a ship and when in position is jacked up using rack and pinion gearing until the legs rest on the sea bed? So how high are the legs to start with? Interesting stuff and what do you mean "maybe"

Thanks for the FD, got it yesterday

Regards

Jeff

That's exactly how it works Jeff. The legs are jacked-up and the rig is towed into position by tugboats. The legs are deployed down to the seabed via electric motors and the body is then jacked-up into position. The derrick, which is essentially a vertical crane for raising and lowering equipment into/out of wells, or drilling them, and which is seen on the right hand side of these photos is cantilevered over the production platform by means of electric stepper motors and a well is either drilled, or well-intervention operations can take place.

The length of legs varies depending on construction. These ones are 300ft. The seabed is around 60ft down, so it looks like my estimate of 120ft from the boat up to the helideck is just about right.

Did you get the Macromedia Flashmovie file to work?

Cheers
Harry

 

[Harrytheheid]

Great shots Heid! If that photo doesn't do the sunset justice, I wish I could have seen the real thing, because the photo is spectacular!

It was amazing Louis. Here's another snap of it.

 

[Harrytheheid]

Wow Harry! Good thing your not afraid of heights!

What kind of a problem where you there to fix?

Sorry for the delayed response John, my connection keeps dropping out and I've been trying to post with no success since the last photo I put up.
As I've said, that personnel basket can be scary the first 2 or 3 times but when you're doing it up to 8 or 10 times a day it becomes routine very quickly. In fact some guys get a bit blase about it - until they get a scare.

There's much more to it, but basically, I'm responsible for keeping up to 77 oil wells and 3 water injection systems on-line and in production on five separate platforms. Obviously I can't do that on my own, so my function out here is to be a consultancy and advisory focal point in assisting the field operators employees to do that at the local level on each platform. There are occasions when they need extra support, which was where I came in the other day. Some downhole equipment wasn't working and we had a well down. This thing produces over 2000 barrels of oil per day, so the operator was loosing hard cash. By adjusting certain setpoints and operation conditions on surface I was able to kick-start the stuck equipment and the well is back into production. Did the same kind of thing today on another platform. Don't always make it work, but can do most of the time.
In the "Alice Through the Looking Glass" world I live in, operators are happy when I don't have much to do, and in contrast to most other professions, they're not too chuffed if I'm extremely busy - for obvious reasons.
I came back into the field around 8 years ago after several years playing at being a desk jockey. It was okay and technically challenging, but I realised that I enjoy being at the sharp end. I've heard on the grapevine that my, hmmm, talents, are required in the Bangkok or China office full-time, but I'm resisting the pull cos I really do like the work out here - and the guys I work with.
Of course, the time off is a big attraction as well.
Talking of which, I reckon I'll need all my time off at the end of this month cos yet another international Toy Soldier order is presently stuck in customs. Missus H is informing that this one will be easy enough to deal with when she stumps up a suitable amount of cash next week, but some lady customs official has told her, no more shipping boxes from the States...???
So, it looks like a visit to the customs office is on for me when I get home. I'll have to play this one very, very, carefully as I have two more orders pending - and one of them is massive. On the one hand I have to be assertive, on the other hand I can't afford to make the lady appear to "loose face" in front of her colleagues. It's a tricky one. For all the talk of open door policies and all the rest of it, China remains a very insular and extremely conservative country in a lot of ways.
If I overstep the mark, then my Wife could get a hard time when I'm away working. It's happened before. So I might have to swallow it and put pending orders on hold while I figure out another way to do it.
They'll be on the lookout for me at arrivals in Dalian international airport after me doing a runner with the case containing all the latest TS purchases in Hong Kong last time - and leaving Missus H to face the music with her suitcase which happened to contain only one set of figures.
I've tried having orders delivered to Shenzhen, Beijing and now Dalian, and I'm running out of options.
Only thing that springs to mind at the moment is to have orders delivered to Hong Kong, sneak them over the border to Shenzhen, then catch a domestic flight to Dalian.
The really frustrating thing is, this stuff is manufactured in China...!!!

Anyway, we'll see how it goes. This lady who's causing the trouble might only be a trainee temporarily attached to Dalian customs - for all I know. Fingers crossed that is the case.
Rambled on a bit there I'm afraid, but it's a real pain in the, umm, neck.

Of course, it's crossed my mind that this is a tactic employed by Madame Zhai designed to make me put TS orders on hold so's she can move into her new Palace a lot quicker than my projected timescale.
Hmmm........We'll see about that when I get home....

Cheers
Harry

 

[Harrytheheid]

Actually, these photos are a little out of synch. There was an earlier thread where I explained that it is prudent to carry out a seabed survey using a specially adapted vessel in order to be certain that the weight of the jack-up can be supported.
That's why the photos that kick-started this thread don't tie in with previous snaps and there appears to be no continuity.
Guess I ought to have put this at the beginning.

Cheers
Harry

 

[Njja]

Sorry for the delayed response John, my connection keeps dropping out and I've been trying to post with no success since the last photo I put up.
As I've said, that personnel basket can be scary the first 2 or 3 times but when you're doing it up to 8 or 10 times a day it becomes routine very quickly. In fact some guys get a bit blase about it - until they get a scare.

.........................................

Harry sorry I missed this post, glad you mentioned it in your note! I can't imagine riding that basket once.....let alone 8 to 10 times a day!

Your job sounds terrific (the technical part) I can't begin to imagine how worked up those folks must get when a platform goes down! I have experienced folks going wild when a truckload of sale items doesn't arrive on time.......and thats no comparison! I certainly hope they appreciate you....and do it with lots of $$$$$ praise is nice, but it doesn't buy the soldiers!!

Good luck with customs it sounds like a difficult situation, they would lock me up and throw away the key for sure! I have enough trouble here in the US when I try and bring a couple of Lionel Trains through security.....I guess they give those "security" people at least 5 minutes training........3 minutes if they can actually speak-a-the-english........I sometimes wonder what country this actually is.

You do way to much flying for me! Since I worked for the airlines back in the 1970's I really try to limit my flying. Back then planes flew in all kinds of weather, and strived to maintain on-time performance to avoid fines since we carried the mail.

Today if someone mentions rain in the terminal the airport shuts down for 18 hours.

I guess thats progress.......oh yeah, and I really believe they landed on the moon........in a studio maybe!

 

[Harrytheheid]

The Offshore Experience - Part 1

I recently sent the following parody to several friends, the ones who are members of this forum insisted I ought to post it here as a bit of light relief. While it has nothing to do with toy soldiers, it was in fact written by a toy soldier collector, so I suppose it does no harm.
Without further ado then:-


Preamble

I am employed as a Senior Electrical Specialist and Project Engineer in the Customer Services group of an American-based company that, as well as having major activities throughout the USA and Canada, is also involved in enhanced reservoir recovery projects world-wide. The division to which I belong covers our operations in Europe, Africa, Middle East and Asia-Pacific. Our group comprises of around four Senior Engineers who are assigned to Regions and Areas, for anything from a few weeks or months to several years, whenever our national staff require additional technical support and other assistance with developing the more, err, challenging projects and contracts.

Having been involved in the Oil Industry for around 30 years in various job categories and almost 20 years in my specific role, I was recently asked by our Training Department to write a short account of the International experience in order to prepare Junior Engineers for the conditions they will soon confront. I decided to let someone else deal with the challenges of working in deserts, or up some jungle, while I instead would offer some insights into those aspects of offshore operations that no-one informs you of in the lecture hall.

The following paper represents my contribution to our trainee’s career development programme.



The Offshore Experience

I'm not infrequently asked what it's like to work on an offshore oil production platform when assigned to an International project. So for those of you wishing to emulate my experiences, I’ve devised a short training course together with some role-play exercises, so that you too can have your very own practice run at the offshore environment in the comfort of your homes. I have also included a few small insights your training officer won’t tell you.

First of all, when reproducing the International assignment experience you need to persuade your manager to route you through Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. This allows for the opportunity to stock up on smoked cheese, dried sausage and jam. Lots and lots of jam. Remember to obtain a receipt for these vital supplies in order to submit it with your expenses for the trip. This might allow you to break even due to the amount of your own cash you’ll spend on bribing immigration officials and paying off taxi drivers. If bought in vacuum packs and jars, this stuff will last for around 2 years in the average refrigerator and may prevent you having to eat the exotic and interesting food on offer in the galley (i.e. canteen/restaurant) at your worksite.

Like This Stuff.

Oh, and don’t forget to visit the pharmacy and purchase sufficient quantities of Imodium and Paracetamol or Tylenol. The reason for these basic precautions shall become apparent 2 days into your assignment.

Avoid the bars at the airport like the plague. Apart from having to pay the rip-off prices, you will inevitably meet someone you borrowed $150 from 4 years ago in Kazakhstan, or West Africa. If you don’t have enough time to go through immigration and visit the nearest supermarket for a carry-out of alcoholic beverages to see you through your 16-hour layover in the terminal, then settle for cheap-ish beer out of the vending machines instead.

On arrival in-country; after spending an uncomfortable night in some cockroach and mosquito infested doss-house the national facilities manager arranged for your overnight accommodation, and having made it as far as the heliport; do try to feign interest while watching the “safety-in-flight” DVD dealing with emergency equipment and actions to be taken in the event of the chopper ditching – all of which I’ve seen dozens of times before and covered extensively during mandatory refresher training every 2 years for as long as I can remember.

Be aware that the security staff will take it as a mortal insult if you chew gum, yawn and/or chat with your friends while the video is playing; unless you’re a national of course, in which case you can do all that, and even sleep throughout the presentation if you feel like it.

Prepare yourself for the flight before hand by practicing with your friends. Pretend you’re on the chopper out to the platform by having a friend revolve an umbrella above your head and get two other friends to shake your chair violently.
Very violently.
Remember to put yourself in a state of mind-numbing terror by imagining everything that can go wrong with the helicopter, as per the safety video you’ve just been forced to watch.
Again.

Oh, you’ve just found out they forgot to book you a seat on the helicopter anyway.
Dear, oh dear, now you will have to take a 12-hour journey out to the field on one of the supply boats.
Do be seasick.
This is normal.

Once safely aboard your little artificial metal island stuck in the middle of nowhere, its time to attend your offshore orientation with the platform medic. Remember to wear your full Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for this vital introduction to the offshore life.

Like This.

Please be aware that the medic might actually be male, even if he happens to resemble a dream-like vision of feminine beauty – and incidentally is a dead ringer for the lead singer out of M-People.

Offshore Medic.

After your offshore orientation, you’ll then need to sort out your office, i.e. the cramped and uncomfortable workspace in which you'll be spending 14 to 20 hours a day for the foreseeable future – and probably have to share with at least 2 nationals who are really there just to spy on you and report your incompetence back to the Field Manager with barely concealed glee.

So a good practice run is to take the smallest room in your house and divide it in two, (a blanket, or some bits of cardboard should do the trick); half a typical bathroom is about the size of your normal office unit offshore. Remove anything remotely decorative or comforting apart from a 3 year old Maxim or FHM calendar featuring outdated photos of Pop Pixie Kylie Minogue, and paint everything that remains brown and grey.

Try to make the entrance to your simulator capsule at home look something like this.

Find yourself a metal desk, perhaps a filing cabinet too, and then a chair.
Break the chair.
This is normal.
Fix the chair ineffectively with duct tape and/or string making sure you can't sit back in it and relax comfortably.

By utilizing every available inch of space on the wall as a whiteboard, you can make an immediate impact on important visitors by giving the impression you have your finger on the pulse of the operation.
Remember to use a permanent marker pen instead of one meant for use with a whiteboard.
This is normal.

Ensure grease and other assorted muck is applied to all projecting corners of your furniture so as to catch unimportant visitors unawares.

The more untidy and filthy you can make your workspace, the more emphasis you will create in fostering the illusion that this is a place where quite astonishing executive command decisions are made on a daily basis.
Like, what you’re going to order up for lunch – more on this later.

By applying a smidgen of deliberate neglect you can end up with a simulator capsule to be proud of.

Set up at least 3 laptops, an all-in-one printer/scanner/copier/fax that doesn’t have the correct USB cable available, and other random bits of electronics all crammed together on your desk. This will fool your new colleagues into thinking you’re someone important.

Give yourself an intermittent internet connection. If you're feeling particularly determined, make arrangements to have no internet access at all for the best part of your working day.
This will ensure that all 12 of the different people you have to report to on a daily basis will be permanently incandescent due to non-responses to their, or anyone else’s, emails.

Do not be concerned.
They will not respond to your emails in any case – so why should you bother?

With some creative spark, your desk could end up looking similar to this.

Note the handy roll of duct tape with which you can try making ongoing and ineffective running repairs to your fragile office furniture.
The spoon stuck to the wall is available for stirring your endless cups of decaf, the plastic box full of toothpicks is so you can chew them all day long and the old cups are for you to use as spittoons for your chewing tobacco should you feel the urge to pretend you’re a Tough Oilman from Texas.

In the absence of a suitable rust-coloured filing cabinet, think laterally and out of the box. Try to get innovative with your filing system.

Err, like this.

TO BE CONTINUED

 

[Harrytheheid]

The Offshore Experience - Part 2

CONTINUED FROM PART 1

You now have your basic workspace, but the ambience is all wrong. Crank up the heat to an almost unbearable level, and install a gigantic air conditioner/fan in your office unit.
Ensure it doesn't work.
Allow it to switch and blast air around very noisily, but remember to confirm it isn't remotely effective in its primary role of cooling your office.

Just outside of your capsule, you need to create a source of quite unbelievable noise. Perhaps 12-15 industrial vacuum cleaners might do the trick. This is mere background, or white noise, though. To accurately simulate the agonizing screech of the pedestal crane just outside your office, you may need to borrow a friend's Kate Bush CD collection, (if you’re an American, try Whitney Houston or Mariah Carey, and the overall effect will be the same). Boot up Windows Media Player and select random play. To gain the full effect, hook your laptop up to the home cinema system and boost the volume up to maximum.

How you’ll replicate the vibration transmitted into your office when the crane is working I really don’t know, unless you happen to live in an earthquake zone.

In order to drown out the banshee-like shrieking of the otherwise winsome Ms Bush, you may want to charge up your iPod and dig out those noise-cancelling earphones you bought in duty free at a ridiculously expensive price because you needed to get rid of all those Euro coins.
It’s at this point you discover your wife has been using the MP3 player and replaced all your groovy Led Zeppelin/Deep Purple/Doors/Warren Zevron/Jimi Hendrix/etc vibes with distinctly un-cool Celine Dion/Madonna/Dido Armstrong/Black Eyed Peas/Amy Winehouse/etc stuff.

Bummer.

You may try closing the door to damp down the unholy racket occurring outside, (a little), but if you do so, you must be sure to increase the heat to an even more incredibly unbearable level.
Something like your average Swedish sauna sounds about right.

To simulate the PA system, simply turn on your personal radio, find a grainy piece of static, and increase the volume to full blast at random intervals. Oh, and talking about radios, bribe someone to come into your office every 5 minutes with a personal radio blaring unintelligible gibberish at 108dB.
Ensure no remotely useful information is transmitted.

Cheer up and just bear in mind – anything’s better than your previous International assignment where the nationals celebrated Fridays by eating a whole sheep’s head – each – true story.

And your PPE was after all, somewhat, err, unusual.

PPE Yemen-Style.

While trying to find anything informative, or even slightly useful in the handover notes your back-to-back apparently dreamed up in the space of 30 seconds before he jumped on the chopper back to the beach, get at least half a dozen of your friends to pose as your work colleagues and have them invade your workspace all at the same time, demanding attention every 20 minutes or so with completely irrelevant and inane questions so that you find it quite impossible to concentrate on electronic circuit diagrams, mathematical calculations, the lunch menu – or even get the chance to call your girlfriend/wife/mum.

Your “Colleagues”.

Remind these extras from a remake of “Night of the Living Dead” to slam the door every time they leave your office.
This is mandatory and written into standard operational procedures.

You may end up looking like this after your first day in the capsule, but don’t give in to despair quite yet, cos it definitely gets worse.

Meals should consist of very well-done steak, or very rare pork (not to be eaten under any circumstances), some kind of grey-coloured unidentifiable fish that might have last swam in water during the Jurassic period, or bits of rubber.
And – chips – or gristle & chips – but certainly lots and lots of chips.
With oodles of tomato ketchup.
Do not enjoy.

For the authentic International assignment experience, try pouring cold sludge into a vat, add some mystery meat (?) and assorted greasy goop.
Eat this cold.
Or try very rare boiled chicken & rice every day for weeks on end.
Completely disguise the disgusting taste with chillies so hot they’ll blister your mouth and make your tongue swell to triple its normal size.
You are now sampling "ethnic culture".
Do not enjoy.

This is where all that jam you bought at the airport comes into its own. Not only can you enjoy jam sandwiches for breakfast every morning, you can also evoke dim memories of those lunches you had at school when you were 9 by adding a dollop of it to your lunchtime bag of rice.
Be prepared for strange looks from the nationals.

Rice Pudding – With Jam.

While simulating the International model, don’t forget to attend daily toolbox safety meetings where everything you know already, and actually has nothing whatsoever to do with your job, is discussed in a foreign language with no translation into English offered.
The knowledge that you’re contributing in a positive manner to the company’s HS&E policies and procedures should be enough to get you through these meetings without falling asleep.

Daily Toolbox Safety Meeting.

After the safety meeting you will be forced to attend the daily operations meeting where you will swiftly discover that despite the fact this is the first time you’ve ever been here, the ongoing engineering problems and failures that have plagued the project, in some cases for several years, are all due to your personal shortcomings.

Enthusiastically agree with this negative assessment of your abilities.
It’s much easier that way.

Daily Ops Meeting.

Don’t forget, it was you who chose to accept this assignment and despite the fact that even at this early stage it appears to be nothing less than a poisoned chalice, there’s no-one to blame but yourself.

Under no circumstances try to participate in the meeting.
Do not try to be proactive or attempt to offer solutions.
No-one’s interested.

Accept that you’re here simply to take the blame.
Keep quiet and just nod your head in agreement with everyone else.

You can always get your revenge on the guy who’s spent the last 30 minutes swearing loudly at you by sneaking into his sleeping accommodation and slipping a cabbage into his kitbag.

After 4 days in the typically unbearable heat and humidity of the sleeping quarters the smell emanating from his corner of the room will have his room-mates noisily vocalizing their desperate demands that he change his socks.

After 4 weeks – they’ll have to evacuate the accommodation vessel in order to find the body of the dead dog that obviously limped on board to die.
If by pure coincidence one is actually found, and you happen to be on assignment in China – it will feature on the menu for the evening meal.
Do not enjoy.

TO BE CONTINUED

 

[Harrytheheid]

The Offshore Experience - Part 3

After your professional and personal ability has been ripped to shreds at the Daily Ops Meeting, make your way to the lower deck and console yourself with a nice cup of tea.

Lower Deck : Nice Cup of Tea

Half-way through your first day of the International rig experience you are perfectly entitled to go outside for a breath of fresh air, but must wear luminous coveralls, a hardhat, gloves and safety glasses; then have to listen to perpetually angry and ugly men with bad skin, breathtaking body odor and halitosis, oh, and plenty of imagined slights and complaints, continually swearing at each other, and you – a lot.

Breath of Fresh Air.

After 2 minutes of this, escape back into your hot and humid capsule and lock the door.
It’s better that way.

It is mandatory and taken for granted that verbal communication with your colleagues will, at all times, be in “Grumpy”, which is a language that happens to be quite similar to English but is generally spoken in a low, snarling, growl; accompanied by lots of swearing.

Humour is only allowed in small and very sarcastic doses.
Do not smile.
Do not be nice.
Do not talk about your emotions, unless it’s some laconic attempt to prove how masculine you are.

Continually remind those around you how miserable the conditions, (and therefore - you), are. Especially when anticipating the next platform or field shutdown which is guaranteed to be entirely your fault and is invariably bound to take out even more of the equipment you’ve been made responsible for, despite the fact your company didn’t supply it.
Simply go with the flow.

Like This.

If you happen to engage in a full blown extended conversation comprising of more than 2 grunted sentences; unless you desire to be regarded as, err, a bit odd, ensure it’s always about mechanics, or engineering, or bits of pipe and do not bother trying to understand it.
No-one else understands it – why should you?
It’s a waste of time, and the effort is better spent perusing Facebook for photographs of previous girlfriends.
More on this one later.

On frequent occasions, you should discuss in the most bitter and twisted terms other people on the platform and then (especially) the people based in the office – in town.
This is normal.


To accurately simulate sleeping conditions, find a couple of rickety single bunk beds that are too short to stretch out in full length, complete with, if you’re lucky, a set of nylon sheets, thin and burred after being washed once a week for the past 10 years. Put them into the other half of the smallest room in your house and invite 3 or more of your friends to share this cramped sleeping space with you for several interminable weeks at a time.

Be prepared to get up 2 hours before you need to in order to have half a chance in the race to beat your colleagues to the bathroom in the morning, otherwise you will be crossing your legs until the next opportunity, which could be mid-day, if you are unlucky.

You may turn off 2 or 3 of the industrial vacuum cleaners just outside your sleeping quarters, but keep the ambient heat at unbelievably high thermal levels.
The use of earplugs is recommended when 4 or more middle-aged men are sleeping in the same tiny room, as the walls can reverberate to sounds not unlike that of a team of lumberjacks sawing wood.

Every couple of nights, have one of your friends imitate the robotic room steward. Get him to open and close the door of your sleeping accommodation loudly, randomly turning the lights on, and smashing the metal bucket that normally resides in the corner of the room into a larger metal bucket several times in order to ensure it is empty. If you are simulating the rigs located in the North Sea instruct your friend to tunelessly whistle some obscure Scottish folk melody, or a sea shanty.
Don't acknowledge the room steward’s presence, or he will try and engage you in conversation about things you’d rather not discuss with anyone else, such as your relationship with your wife.

The Missus.

In fact, it’s better not to think about your wife at any time at all during the period of isolation in your capsule; cut-off and kept away from normal human interrelationships, especially if you suspect she may be having an extra-marital affair with the TV repairman/milkman/school bus driver/grocer/postman/trainee car mechanic at the local repair shop/etc, all of whom you’ll be reliably and enthusiastically informed by “very good friends” in the pub, seem to visit your house regularly whenever you’re on the platform.

You’ll drive yourself and those around you completely nuts by continually bringing up your doubts and fears in conversation, only to find your suspicions are groundless at the end of your hitch away from home.


It’s actually the salesman at the local used car dealership.
Do try to bear in mind that this is how you yourself met her in the first place.

The Classy Nightclub Where You Met Your Latest Wife.

Please note that 80% of offshore workers are on their 2nd or subsequent marriage anyway, as no normal woman is daft enough to put up with a lifestyle like yours for too long. The remaining 20% of the workforce go offshore to get away from their 1st wives and spend 90% of their time on the platform droning endlessly on and on about getting divorced, but never go ahead with it. The other 10% of their conversation is either about football, why they really ought to be retired rock stars by now, or tedious and unlikely stories about girlfriends who definitely exist only in their own fevered imaginations.


Buy your work clothing at jumble sales or charity shops. The laundry will just throw your personal clothes in with the oily, greasy, coveralls in any case. One “wash” and you won’t be able to wear them anywhere else but on the platform anyway.
Oh, and buy your tee-shirts 3 sizes too big. You’ll soon discover that the laundry possesses an uncanny ability to make them shrink to fit. The positive aspect of all this is that you’ll get your tee-shirts back in all kinds of interesting and psychedelic colours after they’ve been left in the tumble driers and incinerated at maximum heat settings for 8 hours too long. Saves you tie-dying them if you’re a neo-hippy.

Buy double the amount of single brand socks you will need and ensure they are all the same colour and style. That way you won’t have any matching up problems when the laundry looses them at monotonously regular intervals and you will still have enough to see you through your time of incarceration on your simulated offshore platform.
Same goes for underpants.

There will be nothing you can do about the smell of diesel that permeates every item of clothing you wear.
Accept it.
Also accept the skin problems that result from the night laundry steward not knowing how to operate the washing machines properly and the industrial strength soap powder hasn’t been rinsed out of your “cleaned” apparel.

Do not, repeat – do not, remonstrate with the night laundry steward.
Firstly, you’ll find out the hard way that he’s the Field Manager’s 2nd cousin.
Secondly, he’s the only guy on the rig who’ll offer you any kind of reliable information as to what’s going on.
Thirdly, he can be relied upon to dish the dirt on the various characters you’re incarcerated with for the next several weeks/months.


If by some happy and unusual chance everything goes well during your assignment, you may find you have some recreation time on your hands.
When simulating the International offshore model, forget about going to the gym.
All apparatus will be broken and the nationals will have moved in a pool table anyway – despite the fact they don’t know the rules and seem to believe the object of the game is to whack any of the balls around the table as hard and fast as possible. Oh, and the table has 5 rips in the baize and a distinct run down to the bottom corner pocket.

TV is a fruitless pastime because you won’t understand the language and locally bought DVD’s won’t work anyway. By the way, do not laugh at poorly made local TV programmes; nationals don’t like that. And whatever you do, if your simulated International assignment is to some country with a constitutional monarchy, despite the fact you’re used to laughing at the uproarious antics of Lizzie and Phil the Greek’s dysfunctional extended family, whatever you do, don’t get caught even being slightly amused at how seriously the monarch’s family in the country you’re visiting take themselves. These are grounds for you being marched off by tough looking and distinctly un-amused military personnel for a spell in the Bangkok Hilton and your work permit will be revoked.

Do bring your own books to your simulation capsule because any half-interesting ones in the platform library will have the final 6 pages ripped out. Some people seem to think that’s funny, apparently.

This leaves the internet as your only alternative recreational facility, source of news from the outside world, and entertainment center, but the connection is too intermittent for serious browsing through Facebook trying to track down old girlfriends and laughing at their present-day photos.

Nope, just go back to your office unit and get on with business as usual.

TO BE CONTINUED

 

[Harrytheheid]

The Offshore Experience - Part 5

Occasionally you’ll be able to have a tea break at your workstation while torturing yourself by perusing photographs of your girlfriend and/or wife on your screensaver.

If you remembered to buy some at the airport, your snack can be a jam sandwich.

Otherwise, it will normally comprise of two slices of processed bread.
Sandwiched between the bread is any combination of the following; bacon fried until its black, processed cheese, noodles, mystery meat fried until its black, fried egg (cold).
Sometimes it’s all these ingredients mashed up together.
Sometimes it’s a wish sandwich, because you wish there was something decent to put inside it.
Do not enjoy.

Sandwich.

Despite taking your daily dose of Imodium religiously, do not be surprised if one hour after partaking of this veritable feast you find yourself have to make a dash to the toilet.
This is normal.

Toilet.

Do not be surprised if someone got there before you.
This also is normal.
Do alert the occupant to the fact that someone else is waiting to use the facilities therein.

If still at home, ensure your simulated restroom is located at the corner of the simulated offshore platform that receives the most directly radiated sunlight throughout the day. Of course this is deliberately chosen so as to discourage people from spending any longer inside that steel sweat box than is absolutely necessary.
If after waiting cross-legged for 2 hours no-one emerges then you need to alert them again to the fact that you’re waiting to get in there, and by Jiminy, it’s getting absolutely imperative by now. In fact, you’re about ready to hit the platform emergency shut down switch.

For The Love Aah God’s’Sake – Let Me In There.

By this time, you’re beginning to wonder if the occupant has collapsed – and you’re almost in a state of collapse yourself. It’s at this point you finally discover there’s actually no-one in there after all – you couldn’t get in because constant thermal expansion and contraction due to the diverse range of environmental conditions – has warped the door.

As can be readily observed, the Designer was a member of the minimalist school of architecture when this essential facility was dreamed up and installed.

Token Contribution to Basic Human Rights.

In fact, internal space is so limited it’s almost impossible to read a newspaper when sitting down with the door closed.
Actually, it’s almost impossible to sit down and do anything at all with the door closed – but we won’t go there.
If you have any kind of common sense whatsoever, you won’t go in there either.


Do enjoy your time on the personnel basket when transferring to the supply boat that will take you back to the accommodation vessel at the end of your working day.

Personnel Basket.

On the Supply Boat.

Once safely aboard the supply boat, you can be certain sure the Logistics department will have decided that your platform needs to have the diesel generator fuel tanks replenished during crew-change.

Your boat, which is doubling up as a shift-change and floating diesel container ferry won’t have the fittings available to ensure the fuel transfer takes place without an environmental disaster occurring. You will just have to wait 1-1/2 hours while the necessary fittings are found on some other boat which for reasons known only to itself is presently situated at the other end of the field.

The Other Boat.

This will ensure by the time that other boat gets here, the fittings are passed over, the diesel fuel transfer is completed and you get back to the galley in your accommodation vessel 4 hours later, there is very little fodder left. And what there does happen to be available has congealed into some unidentifiable mess at the bottom of the food containers.

Accommodation Vessel.

TO BE CONTINUED

 

[Harrytheheid]

CONTINUED FROM PART 5

This is where all your pre-planning comes into play and you can laugh at those fools without your foresight as you look forward to the smoked cheese and dried sausage sandwich you’re going to tuck into – well, you’d enjoy the sandwich and laugh at those fools without your foresight if you hadn’t forgotten to take your emergency rations out of the fridge – in your office – on the platform.

Here comes the key part of this and any other International assignment; it must last for weeks on end....no, sometimes – for months. In fact, when you begin your hitch out here, try hard not to know or even think about how long it will last. Have a friend roll a dice in secret, and then have them tell you an entirely different, and lower, number. It is vital you begin your simulation believing it will last four weeks when in fact it will be six.
At least.


The good news?
Well, when you finish your rig simulation you are allowed and expected to – nay, obliged to – drink very heavily for days and days, sometimes weeks.
DO NOT STOP.

Do remember however – NEVER socialize with people who work for your company. Even though they may enthusiastically join you on these happy occasions, they will take steps to make up quite incredible stories concerning what adventures you’ve got up to in the pub and elsewhere, with the express intention of torpedoing any chances you may have had for advancement in your chosen career.

You are a rig-pig until the end of your days.
Accept it.


Never mind, once you hit Hong Kong there are certain compensations if you go for a night on the town on your own;

Hong Kong.

Compensation.

During your short and temporary period of escape from the offshore experience you will occasionally meet women in the pub with beer guts, BO and hairy armpits, drinking real-ale and playing darts.

This is Not One of Them.

These harridans will astonish you with their stunning self-opinionated range of intelligent conversation and amazing ability to seemingly cure all the world’s problems in a single afternoon/evening.
These creatures are most probably social workers, single mothers who hate men, or mature students living on their ex-spouse’s monthly maintenance payments and studying to be social workers, and they will all be avid readers of the Guardian newspaper.
Unfortunately, or otherwise, they will treat you as a social pariah when they discover you earn a living by ripping the dwindling natural bounty from the bosom of Mother Gia.
So forget about “getting off” with any of them for a one-night stand.
You can always get your own back by running a leatherman multitool down the side of their gas-guzzling SUV’s out in the car park.


And then, just when you've spent your final penny on your final bottle of gin/vodka/whisky/rum/illicitly distilled flash, and can’t really remember very much about what you’ve been doing for the past two weeks apart from go to the pub, watch TV and sleep 18 hours a day; crank up the industrial vacuum cleaners, borrow the Kate Bush CD’s and the personal radios, buy all that jam again, and plunge yourself into another month or two of brain function blackout and sensory shutdown.


You are now fully primed to embrace the offshore existence – again – and end up twitchy, unfit and overweight, with high blood pressure and a Prozac habit, just like these fine upstanding and archetypical offshore workers.

Why do we do it? And, even worse, why do we keep coming back for more?
I have absolutely no idea. But it could be something to do with the fantastic friends you make who share your misery – with a touch of humour.

Actually, the real reason is because the time off allows you to take several holidays each year - sometimes at company expense - plus indulge all your expensive hobbies to your hearts content.

Please send any complaints concerning this training manual to your Human Resources manager.
Please send any contributions towards assisting with the publishing rights of this training manual – to me.


Thank You and Goodnight.
THE HEID