Hey ST, welcome to the site! I used to MWD/DD oversees as well... now I just sit at home and play Ultima.. sad lol
Cool. I'm working for Oceaneering. I still have to sit at the unofficial contractor table in the cafateria, so I don't get to small stalk with you guys much. I'm basicly a monkey with a wrench and Multi-meter right now. I actually have a story I think I'll share with you. (never thought I'd be telling a story like this on a forum about video game scripting)
My first hitch I was on a TLP out in the Gulf and it was being towed in to replace some anchor winches after a big storm. Since we were going to the dock they decided it would be a good time to pull our system off and repair/paint the deck and get a new ROV system installed. We were pulling wires and dismantling our whole wench system (3 man team) when some 20 something year old engineer came walking up behind me and my supervisor. My supervisor was 61 and had been in this company, and offshore, for over 20 years. As you can imagine, any young engineer would have a lot of problems with this guy. So anyway, this kid was sitting back about 10 foot watching us break these 2 1/2 in. nuts which had 10 years of paint and generally just a pain in the @ss to get off. So we're stuggling and the supervisor grabs his trusty cheater pipe. I take a look at him, then I look at the smart kid, then I can't help but start to smile. My supervisor, who hardly noticed the engineer, went on using the cheater to break the nuts loose. After about the 3rd one the kid finally get's up the nerve and says, "Hey, you know Cheater Pipes are not allowed on the rig. You can't use that." My Supervisor, already annoyed at this general situation, turns around and I swear he was about to punch this kid. He starts argueing with him saying something along the lines of... "You don't know *bleep* from Apple butter so go back to your desk you pink fingered desk lizard." I butt in and say, "You know Andy, he's right. It said on the pamplet when we got here we can't use these." Then I turn to him and say, "Do you think you could give us a hand? We're not able to get these things off without the pipe on it." So this kid grabs the ratchet and gets into position. We back up and watch in amusement, we were needed a break anyway. He's about 6 foot tall, but couldn't have been over 150. He wasn't able to move it at all obviously. We just looked at him and shrugged our shoulders. He gave me back the ratchet and faded off behind us and eventually out of the area. We ended up using the cheater pipe. It wasn't the safe thing to do, but regardless it still made me laugh later.
I actually talked to the kid later on that week. (I call him a kid, but I'm actually only 27. It makes the story better when I say it like that.) He wasn't half bad of a guy. I did 4 years in the Marine Corps so seeing this kind of situation again really made me feel comfortable for some reason. I had never really met anyone who worked Offshore when I wasn't doing it myself. Once I started working offshore I seem to meet a lot of people who, "Did it for a while." It's like when you first get a new car, you had never noticed anyone else driving that kind until you started driving it, then everyone and thier brother drives one.
Well, that's all for my story time for now.
