Offshore work NLC

[Lazydonkey]

I'd like to start a thread....

How do I get a job outside Oil that makes me happy and pays me well cause....O&G is dull!

It may well be dull but surely the negatives stated above are why it's so well paid?

I'd love to keep a good salary and have none of the downsides of my current role, but generally the more money you earn, the greater the sacrifices.

/Written from a soulless office in Brentford hundreds of miles away from my wife

............not wanting this thread to descend into people complaining about eating handfuls of gravel each morning

[robin]

............not wanting this thread to descend into people complaining about eating handfuls of gravel each morning

You get a whole handful ... when I were a lad we used to share a 'andful o' gravel ... a week!

[robin]

Agreed with Dave and Dom ... to do something rewarding that is not your current job, start your own business. It has to be something you are passionate about and if it involves technology R&D you better have deep pockets. If there is nothing you are passionate about, don't do it!! If you do it, make sure you do your market research well, otherwise you'll be sorry.

Cheers,
Robin

[Gourlay83]

I'd like to start a thread....

How do I get a job outside Oil that makes me happy and pays me well cause....O&G is dull!

Could be worse, you could live outwith the oil bubble and have to actually work for a living and make peanuts. We should all be very grateful we have the oil industry at our door steps, where turning up qualifies you for a £70k + salary.

Phil, onshore job with a service company (GE Oil & Gas, Aker Solutions, Cameron etc) is the most likely way to get into offshore work. Just be honest that offhsore work is your end goal, and after a couple of years experience you can request a move. I did the same but wanted to get into Engineering, so moved from shop floor to Design then finally engineering whilst doing a degree part time. Hard work, but starting to get the benfits now. Some people do manage just to get into roles with no experience or qualifications, something i've never understood.

Alan.

[tut]

Gravel????????

Bloody luxury, used to dream of gravel when we were digging into our daily sawdust allowance.

tut

[woody]

I'd like to start a thread....

How do I get a job outside Oil that makes me happy and pays me well cause....O&G is dull!

Could be worse, you could live outwith the oil bubble and have to actually work for a living and make peanuts. We should all be very grateful we have the oil industry at our door steps, where turning up qualifies you for a £70k + salary.

Phil, onshore job with a service company (GE Oil & Gas, Aker Solutions, Cameron etc) is the most likely way to get into offshore work. Just be honest that offhsore work is your end goal, and after a couple of years experience you can request a move. I did the same but wanted to get into Engineering, so moved from shop floor to Design then finally engineering whilst doing a degree part time. Hard work, but starting to get the benfits now. Some people do manage just to get into roles with no experience or qualifications, something i've never understood.

Alan.

My dotted line is off to run GE Montrose (sub sea tree manufacture) next month, expansion plans in the footing.



Gareth, pretty much everything mainstream is dull after you've done it for a while?

[KennyT]

I can see why the offshore life is appealing, there have been a lot of negatives mentioned but there are huge positives as well.

Yes you stay away from home for 2,3 or 4 weeks at a time but you get even time back to be at home doing what ever you like.
Yes you might miss a kids birthday, a wedding or Christmas here and there but the following year you’ll likely be on an opposite rotation so will be home for them. It is pot luck what you are home for and what you’ll miss, you can take holidays as well if you need to be home for something.
Even if you miss a kids birthday, If you were working an office job of 8-6 you’d barely see them that day anyway, and you can make up for it with 2,3 or 4 weeks at home where you can see them all day every day, take and drop them from school etc.

Helicopters- yes they can be a bit daunting but you’ll spend 90minutes-ish going to and from work twice a month on one, I don’t like the sound of spending 90minutes every day on the A90,M8 etc all year round. I don’t know the stats but sure you’ll be more likely to be involved in an incident driving a car every day than sitting in a helicopter a couple of times a month, however the severity of helicopter incidents is likely a lot higher.

Someone mentioned sitting on a bomb? Hardly.

The living quarters can be a bit restrictive but everything you need is there. Everyone complains they share a cabin with a smelly fat bloke, even the smelly fat blokes complain about something. But it’s not that bad.

My advice if you are interested in an offshore position and you already have Engineering type experience would be to go down the Subsea engineering route, there are many routes in but I’ve seen it done several times to start with the likes of Vetco, FMC, Cameron, GE, Hydril etc as a ‘service tech’ type role possibly in the workshops then offshore, then you can build the offshore experience and become a good candidate for a Subsea engineer training program with a Drilling Contractor. A few years on the job training and you can be a standalone Subsea engineer which is a very in demand position, expats are used all over the world so it is transferable, will always be required and a role that is constantly developing as new equipment comes along, not going to be completely dull.

I don’t work a rotation any more, but bloody wish I did some times!

[Dave]

I'm always confused when folk say...."I wanna job offshore" when in reality it's bollocks!
Not only do you fly out in a widow maker...you then live 2-3 weeks in a small cabin with some other manky cat unless you're big in oil (Mr Grant). This cabin is in a bigger box and sits on a potential grenade. You miss special events such as birthdays, xmas, NY, on rare occasion your kids birth.

Flip side....money tends to be decent and you gain good experience but don't be put off with onshore work.

Well if any of the above is a concern to anyone looking to work offshore then its probably not for you, but I was in a similar situation to Lewis a few years ago when I was leaving the forces and looking for a new direction in life, I made up a list of what my priorities in life were and then went looking to see what potential career could fulfil them, It soon became pretty clear that life offshore could tick most of the boxes.

If living and sharing a cabin with someone else is seen as a bit of a burden you should try sharing a mess deck with sixty other guys, 2-3 weeks away, how about eleven months in one year, especially when you’d ordered your first new Elise that year thinking you’d only be away for a fraction of that time. Potential grenade, ha! That’s nothing how do you fancy being surrounded by explosives and if the proverbial ever hit the fan some fooker would be trying to sink you!!
I think what I’m trying to say is, what can be seen as a bit of hardship by some can be seen as luxury by others.

As to the pay, this wasn’t a priority for me and until I got my contract through the post I wasn’t really aware of what my salary would be, but to say its “decent” would be a bit of an understatement. Some of the drill crew out here are more or less straight out of school and not wanting to do them a disservice they are basically unskilled labourers, but currently earning somewhere around 30K, I’ve also got two guys working for me that have just been taken on after finishing their apprenticeship I guess they must be on 55-60K, give it another six months and they can expect it to rise to around 65K plus bonuses. This is North sea, but if you were more money oriented then working abroad could see you double this.

Unlike some I couldn’t really see myself working onshore, though they keep trying to get me into the office, but for me I can’t see the attraction of it. All I would say if you think life working offshore is for you give it ago, you can always change your mind and go and join the rat race.

[tut]

Good food as well if you are on the right platform.

As Dave says, where else would your years pay cheque be £55K starting your first job after finishing your apprenticeship, as Luke's is.

tut

[renmure]

Good food as well if you are on the right platform.

It is beginning to sound even more appealing.
Where is the dotted line for me to sign up

[Dave]

Very true, I forgot to mention that I'm on a two and three rotation, so I see that as thirty weeks paid holiday a year

I can see why the offshore life is appealing, there have been a lot of negatives mentioned but there are huge positives as well.

[rossybee]

KennyT and Dave - amen brothers!

Gareth, you seem to bore of jobs very quickly, you moaned like hell about the last one (my employer) and now you're moaning six months down the line.

If O&G is that boring for you, no one is forcing you to stay in the industry, and I share Alan's view that we are lucky to be part of an industry which happens to be very affluent and pays well to give us a good standard of living for us and our families.

[tut]

Why would you go for a pay cut Jim?

tut

[renmure]

Tut, you are right... and even for good food it would be a mistake.

Anyhow, I know I would be no good at it. I would be a terrible employee and for my benefit (and everyone else's) have always been self-employed, doing flexible contract & consultancy work, with the luxury of doing as much or as little as I need and, if life heads off at a tangent, then being able to go with the flow without buggering up anyone else's plans.

I do some work at Michelin and other large factories in Dundee & Angus each week and I recon I can think of more than a dozen of the skilled/semi-skilled mechanic and fitters at these places who are all actively trying to "get offshore" ... without much success it has to be said.

[Gareth]

Calm down boys. No one knows more than maybe my next car salesman that I appreciate the sh*t my job gives me.
Let's not anyone make me feel guilty for "the bubble" I'm in. No one handed me a job and I started at the bottom and worked to get to where I am now.

Ross,
The problem with the last place was the minority of Managers that took no responsibility or gave any support. On the whole that company in question have done some good stuff. The new place is just a big machine and things take longer to do which brings out my frustration.

We've now hijacked Phil's thread, apologise.