The nature of the oil industry is ebb and flow. It’s cyclic.
And when you work in the field, even a minor change in the industry can affect
your day-to-day. That recently happened to us down in Mexico. We lost some
contracts and all the sudden we went from being a busy, over-worked location to
a slow location. I mean ‘crap there’s not enough chairs in the office for all
these field engineers and there’s no rigs to send them to’ slow. This is where
it comes in handy working for the largest provider of oil-field services.
Instead of sending us home or even laying-off engineers, SLB simply sells us
off to the highest bidder in another SLB location.
For me, that highest bidder was Venezuela (although I have
suspicions they sold me to the only
bidder). This means that Venezuela pays my location over twice my salary for
the privilege of my experience and expertise for a set amount of time (in my
case, one month). To be honest, I suspect Venezuela is mostly looking for warm
bodies with how much activity there is. Either way, it means I got an
all-expense paid trip to Mexico City, for the visa, and then on to Venezuela.
I've been here for three weeks now and I finally have some
internet and so I will attempt to answer the most pressing of questions.
