I recently took a job for an old friend, and one of the best drillers I’ve ever known. He called me about a well that his company had bid, and received, but were short-handed on. He wanted me to go get the job started until they could get some experienced hands up there. I decided to do it for a couple reasons. First, it was an interesting job, requiring several different drilling methods on the same hole. I like a challenge. Second, work has been pretty slow since the oilfield went through its latest inevitable bust. Lottie was getting pretty tired of me sitting around, and had threatened to get me a job as a Walmart greeter just to get me out of the house. The job was less than 200 miles from the house, which was closer to home than I have worked in years, so I moved my trailer over there and the adventure began.
The job began very slowly because the company was swamped with work and short of equipment. We had the rig in a lay-down yard near the job and they borrowed, and stole, equipment from other rigs to get me enough equipment to rig up. Turns out to be a good thing, though. Since the rig had been stacked for two years, everything on it was either missing or broken. We spent two weeks fixing or replacing things that should have been there. This gave me time to get to know my new crew.