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.