Whoever says "nothing can surprise them" should have worked in my office!
Recruiting is one big surprise after another, and once I thought I had at least mastered the routine of the hiring process for the domestic rigs in Canada, Noble Drilling sold the land rigs and was now solely an offshore drilling company.
Today I still believe that someone either made a huge mistake or that I had been smiled upon by the Gods, because Noble asked me to stay on with the company and to open a international offshore recruiting office in Alberta;, we found space in Leduc.. what an adventure this career has been.
Finding personnel in an industry like this drilling industry in Canada is a difficult task, its an industry that even during boom time has downtime such as spring breakup, or ice bridges hampered by early spring thaws, which affects a large percentage of the men and women on the rigs and in the camps. Our company owned their own camps and I felt that was a bonus especially for the recruiting end of it. Everyone was under the same benefit plan, plus they would get to know each other very well, rather than moving from one rig to another or one company to another. We were all Bawden/Noble personnel. The cooks and camp staff received a lot of respect from the rig crews, as they should have. The crews knew what a wonderful meal and baked goods were awaiting them everyday in a very clean kitchen before and after shift. The living quarters were spotless and always clean bedding and towels. Occasionally on a crew change day, if someone was coming into the office we would have the good fortune of one of the cooks sending in baked goodies to the office, the butter tarts were definitely one of the favorites. They have also been known to bake either Christmas or wedding cakes on request.
Rig visits for our domestic operations in Canada was always an opportunity that I looked forward to and if it happened to be a rig with a camp - BONUS!!
Speaking of rig visits; I had been in the personnel department for awhile but I had not met all of the rig managers in person, we only knew each other in the phone. Ernie H. was a rig manager with a witty, fast sense of humour and we were chatting about crew shortage when he said "you should come out here for a visit so everyone could meet you" I responded that it was a good idea and that he should send in a truck to pick me up and Ernie's comment was "hell if you're that big I don't know if we want to meet you."
The big fear in an HR dept. is that another drilling contractor would have a few rigs start up before ours and would need some new hires to fill the spots of those that had either gone farming for the season, changed career path entirely or went to another drilling contractor., always the risk that some of our laid off staff may go elsewhere. There is never any great length of time where you aren't looking for some staff, even though you'd try to transfer rig or camp staff from the idle rig to another rig, there were only so many positions that needed filling - some days it was vey hard to decide who was going where.
Rigs that didn't shut down for Christmas - and many didn't because of where they were in respect to the drilling program, was a nightmare. The men and women with families we'd try to accommodate as well as possible and negotiate a New Years and Christmas swap with any of the single guys, and that all depended on whether you had any rigs down at all!
We do many things to help them out, arrange for transportation, try to keep the dedicated longer-termed employees busy either in the shop, on another rig or lent out to another drilling contractor, but being bailed out of jail was something I would not do; only had that request once, and it was from one of our very good derrickhands, he called late one night and asked if I'd bail him out; I asked him if he liked where he was, he replied "he did not", I replied "well learn to, because we were not doing bail" !! I found a temporary replacement and he came back when he had his problems settled. Of course he told his story at the rig and got a lot of teasing.
EAVSDROPPING
Crew change days for the Canadian rigs that were fly-ins was a hectic entertaining day to say the least., the crews both for rig and camp would come to the shop, park their cars in the gated backyard and come into office waiting for the shuttle bus to take them to them to airport. Many of them would come in and out of my office, sitting and swapping stories of their days off. What they didn't know was that I was listening quite closely to the conversations and would jot down where they would hang out on those days, whether it was a neighbors, seed/feed/hardware store or a bar, wherever. When I was in dire need of a hand for a few days and didn't have an immediate candidate that was willing to hire on for a few days, I would call one of the fellows who was on their days off to see if they could help me out. I'd call their home/cell first, fortunately call display wasn't available, but if there wasn't an answer I'd then call the neighbor, place of business or entertainment that they had casually mentioned in conversation. If it was a bar I'd have them paged - a very bewildered employee would answer the phone and even more bewildered when he heard my voice - always the same question " what the hell - how did you know where to find me"? Gordon H. had mentioned a seed/feed/hardware store that he seemed to spend quite a bit of time at and when I couldn't reach him on any of his phones I called this place of business. The clerk that I spoke with, when I asked if she knew him and by some slight chance would he be there; She replied Yes she knew Gordon but no he was not there, she thought he was in the field seeding. She listened to my plea and then agreed to drive out some miles and across that field to ask him to call me. Imagine his surprise when he got that message. . Another time left a message with a local radio station that I knew was listened to by the motorhand that I needed, message was for him to please call our office number - again another very surprised employee. These calls worked almost every time, even if they couldn't go to work, almost all were respectful enough to respond to the call.!! The staff at these businesses and the neighbors were amazingly helpful.
Another incident where it was just pure luck for me, I needed to find crane operators for Venezuela as soon as possible, had no idea where to look for them, and the day after the request came in, a Driller - Tony M, stopped at office for coffee on his way either to or from the rig, I mentioned that I needed crane operators and - before I could say more he said his neighbor is a crane operator that had worked in the Beaufort sea on a ship, and from that coffee came 5 crane operators. Talk about the Gods smiling on me. I seemed to be surrounded with people that constantly saved my butt and made me look competent!!
At the time that Noble land rigs had been sold to Nabors, we had only one female floorhand, but now I'm sure there are many more in all of the rig positions and I would love to hear your stories.
Many of the rigs crews were about the same age as my own family so it was pretty easy to get attached to them. Many of new hires were young, wild and so damn funny, but the best part was that they dedicated to their jobs and very seldom let me down. Laurel and Larry K. were brothers that worked us, not only did the boys work for Noble but also their mom Mary was one of our cooks and their stepdad Walter worked lease, definitely a family affair.. We needed a crewcab taken out to Larry's rig so I asked him if he would drive it out . I laid out all the rules on how he was supposed to drive that company vehicle, blah, blah, he listened with a big smile on his face, got into the truck, rolled up the window and tramped on the gas, dirt and gravel flying all over the place, then he stopped at the gate, rolled down the window and shouted with that same big smile on his face "so that's not how I'm not supposed to drive it?".
I could write a book just putting down comments and funny stories about all those years and all those people that made up my life.
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