Robert J Samples Loc: Round Rock, Texas

When I was working as Vice President and Sales Manager, we were growing fast, and furious! We not only had new salesmen coming on board, but new products. I would usually have two or three new products to be introduced and had to have clear and suitable descriptions to go along with photographs of the product and how it operated.

While this would have been easy with competent graphic artists and tech writers, I wasn’t blessed with either. In one case, I was to have for an introduction a new shale shaker that if it worked in a test case, would then be fitted on a dozen land rigs and four new drill barges. So, in an effort to share the workload, I hired an outside supposed tech expert to handle the writing of a brochure for the shale shaker. For those who may not know, a shale shaker on a drilling rig is where the mud is returning from the well bore and is laden with rock ground up by the drill bit, along with the mud, when it arrives at the surface, must be separated. The rock discarded and the mud is returned to the pits and reused.

Since I only had seven branch offices and salesmen to supervise, a plethora of bid requests in which I had to respond to, I sought to distribute and hire some others to share the workload. I had an individual who presented himself as a competent technical writer to help. Well, I found that I was mistaken because this individual was not accomplishing his job on time and returning it to me as we had agreed. Nor was he returning my phone calls.

Finally, one day as I walked past the company’s receptionist desk, I noticed a large business envelope that was addressed as “Sand Sifter”! Now as far as I knew, there was no such device, at least in the ‘oil patch’ so I opened the package and lo and behold, there was my photo of our shale shaker. I guess the tech writer had forgotten the official name and had come up with his clever, but erroneous name for our shale shaker. It wasn’t very accurate, but at least it was a start, and I took it and finished it so we w ould have a preliminary brochure.

Since our sister drilling rig company would be willing to provide a test case for this new shale shaker, we shipped our first unit over to Louisiana for the installation. Unfortunately, it did not last as long, or as we would have liked. During the first twenty-four hours of operation, it shook so furiously that it shook itself apart and stopped working. The driller and his crew were wise enough to not have completely removed their old shale shaker and at the failure of our shale shaker, reinstalled their old one so they could continue drilling.

This failure was not a total catastrophe, since this was the first attempt to be continuous operation for more than twenty-four hours, it gave us a clear picture of what went wrong and why. The hydraulic activator had shown us where the weak parts were and allowed us to remedy those failures.

Our parent company was the owner of two twin engine turbo prop corporate aircraft. In one fabulous quarter, the executives purchased a turbo prop helicopter. One of the drilling managers famously said, “I hope that isn’t a signal or sign!” But it was! that year had not ended until all the companies were being run by ‘skeleton’ crews. This became reality, “The last one out, turn out the lights and lock the door”! I had never been unemployed in my entire lifetime and it was a strange even weird experience. It was a 'thanks to Saudia Arabia", to torpedo oil prices. We were working under the assumption oil prices were headed to $100 per barrel. Instead, the price dropped to almost $10 per barrel and everyone in the service industry lost their jobs.

On one of the last of my evaluations, I would walk on water! Then within three or four weeks, I was considered excess baggage and terminated! Just Sayin…RJS

saw1 Loc: nor cal Windsor

It was always MY belief that I never wanted to become someone the company thought they couldn't do without.
The company can't afford to employ ANYONE they can't do without. Therefore you would be lookin for another job.
Just Sayin. Also, JMO.

Robert J Samples Loc: Round Rock, Texas

More than likely you are correct! I had decided to move on some time before my being released. I had a tentative promise for a contract representative for a drilling company to be based in London. It all depended upon one employee who would be given first choice, but from what the executive handling the case, he did not believe the company employee would accept this move.

Before anything could happen, the bottom fell out of the crude oil prices and it dropped to near $10 dollars a barrel and all deals were scuttled. I guess I was glad, because I could have been caught in London with a big hat and no cattle! Just Sayin...RJS

Chuckay Loc: Central Florida

Steve, I was the only licensed electrician at a US Air Base here in Florida, and they needed a Barrier tech so they sent me to Moody Air Base in Georgia for three weeks to get certified then about six months later they sent me to school to become certified on the Generator's on the Base and they had to update the Lighting protection system on all the buildings on base so off to school again to get certified on that and install it on all the buildings 🥴 with two guys helping me it took over a month, we were hireing a outside contractor for the fire alarm work untill they thought it would be a good idea to (yep) send me to school for that so off to Moody Air Base again for two weeks, the guys in maintenance shop started to laugh at all the certificates and licenses I had with no more pay😂 well I've never turned down bring paid to go to school plus I told them I would probably be the last man standing because I could do pretty much what ever needed to be done 😂 well to my surprise my kidneys quit March 2010 and that ended my career with the government, 🥴 well the Commander and I was good friend's and he gave me all the benefits of a retired military person 👍 I can come and go, hunt and fish on the Base anytime they are not bombing on the range,
So I always tell anyone who has a chance to get free schooling don't turn it down 👍

saw1 Loc: nor cal Windsor

Alright brother. Congrats.

Barnacles Loc: Northern California

For anyone who doesn't know, drilling mud isn't like the stuff you played in when you were a kid. It's (usually) a water-based soup of chemicals. I've heard of, but never seen oil-based drilling mud. It looks a lot like mud (hence the name), and has about the consistency of tomato soup. Among other things, the pH is carefully controlled, and so is the weight (the specific gravity). Back in the early days of oil drilling, a successful well resulted in a gusher. That's rare now, as we anticipate the pressure that the underground crude is under, and additives are mixed into the mud to make it heavier so that the weight of the column of mud in the well bore will result in a pressure at the bottom of the hole that is close to what's expected in the oil vein. There's a lot more to it than that, but that's enough. "mud" isn't really mud.

Robert J Samples Loc: Round Rock, Texas

Yes, the weight of the drill column must be equal, or slightly heavier than the pressure of the oil and gas at the bottom. Bentonite is one of the substances that provides thickening, I am sure there are others depending upon the pressure that must be controlled. Just Sayin...RJS