Oilfield Money Explained Pt 2

You know, its funny how many people just don't get it. I can't even begin to tell you how many times some of my friends out in the "normal world" (as we call the rest of the world) ask me "Why do booms go bust when all you guys talk about is how much work there is."

In a word; GREED

Plain and simple. If you look at my last post regarding oilfield money you'll see where I talked about how expensive things are here. Let me give a bit of background information on this. Not even four years ago a cheap motel room here was $40/night. Apartments could be had for $300 or $400 a month. RV spots were $200/month.

Now things are at least double that, in most cases triple or quadruple that. It isn't because the quality has gone up. It isn't even because the demand has gone up. Its because greedy fucks that live here have seen their way to screw the oilfield worker. Sure we have money that flows rather freely, but its because of our work conditions. If you work for 12 hours on site without anything there other then a blue rocket (porta-john, porta-potty, whatever you want to call it) and a few coolers with water in them you are willing to blow some serious cash when you hit the town for the night. Cold beer, hot food, and good AC are the only requirements we have. The food doesn't even have to be good just so long as its hot, fresh and fast. On average, the "normal" oilfield worker will spend the majority of his per diem (generally $35/day to live off of) between quitting time and midnight.

That is a lot of money being dumped into a shithole town. I call it a shithole because I have never, I repeat, never been in an oilfield town that isn't a shithole. I could be in Salt Lake City working on the Refineries and i would still call it a shithole. It could be the middle of fucking nowhere Wyoming and I would still call it a shithole (surprise, thats where I am right now).

Now, the smart city planers or whoever they are, take some of that money and put it into improvements. Here they are redoing a lot of the roads that have been deteriorating since the 70's with minimal maintenance. Most places they just take the money and run.

Oilfield workers might be an understanding lot, we have to be to survive some of the places we work, but just like anyone we have our breaking point. And, believe it or not, that breaking point is money. When it starts taking every dollar of our per diem just to afford food let alone some entertainment things start wearing thin. When things wear thin with oilfield workers, rumblings start on the horizon.

A boom very rarely goes bust because it plays out or the work is done. A boom goes bust because the workers, and the companies, get fed up and move on. Thats why there is always a boom going somewhere. For example, if things go bust here in BFE Wyoming no worries. I'll just head on up to Alaska or central Wyoming. Or if I get real desperate there is always work in Canada for an oil hand. Let alone the Dakota's with those new finds.

I guess I'm kind of loosing focus here, but my point is all the greedy fucks in this world that always find a way to screw the common man are the reason the booms go bust. It isn't just the Oil and Gas industry, its any industry. Look at anything and you'll see the greedy minority driving prices up to satisfy their urges. In this process they fuck the common person, because once the market reaches an inflated level to their satisfaction they drop the bottom out of it by selling out. It happens every single goddamned day in every state, but it just seems exaggerated in the oil industry because it is on an exponential scale.



Anyway, with this rant over I will try and steer clear of money issues and move more towards every day life out here.

Oilfield Money Explained Pt 1

Working in the oilfield isn't all its cracked up to be. Trust me, I've been doing it my whole life. Most people that have never experienced it only see the dollar signs. Sure, we can pull $100,000 a year with a highschool education or a few years of college experience. But what people don't realize is how much work it takes to make that kind of money.

If you ever meet someone that says they are making six figures in the oil and gas industry; the first thing you should do is ask them how many hours a week they work, the second thing you should ask is when their last day off was.

Currently the industry standard for inspections (the field I am in) is six days a week, ten hours a day. This is at a minimum. When the "big" projects hit, we transition to seven days a week, twelve or fourteen hours a day. This is where the money is made, everything over fourty hours a week is time and a half. When you start talking the base wage of $20/hr for 40 hours ($800 for the slow ones in the crowd) then $30/hr for the next 44 hours ($1320), you are going to get $2120 a week before taxes. A week. That works out to right around $100,000 a year (pre taxes) when you account for the couple days off a year that the average oilfield worker gets.

A basic laborer is starting out at $24/hr around these parts, but they are also working every day of the week for a minimum of ten hours a day.

So think about it before you just start seeing the dollar signs.

Then there comes the bullshit that we, the oilfield workers, deal with on a daily basis. Things such as $1700+ a month for a single bedroom apartment in the middle of fucking nowhere Wyoming where three years ago the same apartment was maybe $300/month. The constant attitude we get from all the "locals" that don't like all the "oilfield trash" that is moving in. But then they smile as they fuck you with the prices. They don't like us here, but they sure do love our money.

Or how about $80/night to live in a shithole motel? Yeah, thats just awesome.


Then there is dealing with all the fucking idiots that come from all over the nation because they heard about how good the money is. They last a few weeks at the most. Most of them go crawling back home with their tails tucked between there legs. But that will be another rant.