OMFG!

This post isn't about any one contractor, I think its more about the troubles that contractors are having in general, finding competent workers to fill the seats.

I just finished a small service rig prep today. That's where we go in after the drilling rig has moved off and fix the messes they left behind, getting the site ready for the next service to get in and do their work. (In this case it could be a service rig or maybe the frac crew). We clean up the mud, collapse the mouse and rat holes ect... Not hard work, most equipment operators look forward to it as a easy day with little or no pressure.

The way things have been going with the busy and hectic oilfield these days, the contractor owners are pulling their hair out trying to find operators to run the equipment. They don't just work for me, they work for a dozen me's doing the same thing all over the place. From one day to the next I sometimes don't know who that operator is or where he came from, I have to trust that the person knows what they are doing, the contractor has to trust that what that person wrote on their resume was the truth.

Well I got a good one yesterday, one that is worth my time mentioning here anyway. I got to the site and watched for awhile. The guy never got out of first gear, going forward or back. It was odd, most times when I see this the operator is to put it bluntly, "Fucking the dog" (lazy), has something wrong with his machine, or the owner is greedy and has told him to work that way ie: the longer it takes the more he can charge. (I worked for someone like that once)

I told the foreman I was tired of watching this gongshow, get it done before noon and get off the site. The foreman came back once he had talked to the man...he found out the reason he never went out of first gear was because he didn't know how to put it into any OTHER GEAR! WTF! I couldn't believe what I had just heard and asked him to repeat it. I then found out that in addition to not knowing how to operate the machine that the guy was picked up off the Greyhound bus that morning. Now I know the man was put through a proper company orientation, its just the way this company operates. At what point does contractors' responsibility end and the workers responsibility to tell the truth, provide an accurate resume, and ensure that they themselves have taken the steps to ensure they are competent, begin?

You know there is an old joke that I usually attribute to my hometown: "Whats the best thing to come from.... Answer: An empty bus.

This is getting dangerous. 

What is...

a "Catskinner"? I noticed some people have searched for the word when looking at the youtube channel I have. The feedjit gadget at the bottom of this blog lets me see where visitors come from and what terms they used to get here. It is a word that some might not know or understand. I always had only a rough understanding myself so I googled and found this at a website called Kids-n-Cowboys:

The life of a “teamster”, be they a “bull whacker” or “mule skinner”, was no snap, and they usually occupied the lowest rung on the social ladder. The breed of plains men drawn to this profession were never in the mainstream of frontier life; as a group they were probably the least literate of frontiersmen. Their sweat-soaked, vermin infested hair and clothing, and vile language helped earn them this low position. They were usually red-shirted, brigands, jailbirds and desperados that commonly carried a “bowie knife”, revolver and a “bull whip”. If there was one thing in common between “bull whackers” and “mule skinners” it’s the bullwhip. It was his badge of recognition. The lash might be as short as ten or as long as twenty feet of heavy braided rawhide with a “popper” on the end to make it crack. There are many legends of drivers that could “flick” a fly off the ear of an animal without touching it. Merely cracked overhead, a bullwhip could inspire the dumbest ox or most obstinate mule to greater effort. For any frontiersman that dared to challenged a teamster, the bullwhip could be a more feared weapon than his revolver or knife.~Kids-n-Cowboys

At the turn of the last century, machinery began to replace draft animals used to tug, tow or haul heavy loads, the muleskinner and his unique profession became a thing of the past. One of those machines used to replace the mule or an ox was made by the Holt company, because of its linked track design it was known as a caterpillar as Mark Twain was once thought to have exclaimed that the machine resembled one. In 1925 Holt merged with the Best (another tracked equipment manufacturer), and the result was a company called Caterpillar. The machine and designs were so good that almost any machine that used a linked track was referred to as a "Cat". I think that you can now see where this is going...somebody that operates a piece of heavy equipment, in my line of work anyway, is called a "Catskinner". Despite the passage above that refers to a Mulskinner as occupying the "lowest rung" of society, there is no term I am more proud to called than a Catskinner. I just wish we still used the bullwhip ;-)