The End?!?
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Originally Posted by Side Note
Who is a forum moderator? Would like some assistance with this thread if possible. Not sure what happened to ElkHunter's name.
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Maybe, but I hope not. It's a rather anti-climactic ending.
The slow down started... well the oil price started dropping mid-2014. For anyone who hasn't looked at a chart it almost looks like a straight line from ~$100 to ~$50 in 6 months. I guess my company had been waiting to see if anything would change... and I think we lost a client due to operator error.
Lay offs!
But lay offs seemed to be drawn out. I found this rather taxing. Never know what's going to happen. I survived for quite some time. After March they stopped. I was still there and all seemed good for some time. To help offset the lack of work around Williston... I forgot to mention that after March we closed the Minot shop... we were sent all over. I went to Texas for a job. I went to Wyoming. It was interesting to see other parts of the US.
Every once in a while talks, or rumors rather, would surface about more layoffs. All of a sudden several support staff were eliminated in late Q3. Everyone thought when they said crews were later thought they actually meant when we were slow and didn't have work. Every crew was out working if I remember correctly, if not, all were scheduled for work rather soon. Long story short it seemed like we were good. The people that were laid off I think most would agree were nice people but we didn't need 3 mechanics, 2 logistics people, 3 office assistants, etc.
Nonetheless I get out a dry erase marker and head to the whiteboard, something I have made a habit of over the years. Usually I doodle, teach newbies about what we do (something I've done less and less of due to lack of newbies), try and figure out math problems off the top of my head... like knowing the weight / density of water what is the depth of empty space from the top of a Dragon tank holding 100bbls of water. I never figured it out. I knew it involved trig functions but I tried to find the answer with out it. Pretty easy with a Google search later.
Coworkers always got a kick out of it. "What did [me] draw today?"
My two most popular posts were name lists. The most popular was officially referred to as "[My name]'s List." It was the people I cared or didn't care about. I smile and nod to everyone, am amiable to the best of my ability; I'm sure that not everyone likes me but I do my best to be nice... For those who have read this thread for some time know coworkers had some issues with me and I always was the last to find out what was happening. It was like a secret underground movement of sorts.
Over time I won just about everyone over. I forgot the exact motivation for putting this up but I did. Occupied the "waiting" phase of my job. There were four colors: blue (best), black, orange and red (worst). Most people were in the blue and black.
Anywhooooo... apparently the one person present when I created this list (in the blue BTW) apparently decided to leak the existence of the list out even though it was erased. Seemed like everyone wanted to know where they fell, some with a joking curiosity, others quite seriously. People not even on the list wanted to know where they were on the list! (It was operators only.)
Then there was list #2, the lay off list. I actually had one prior when I was in Minot. I did these lists to mentally prep myself for the guillotine. Turns out the one I had done while we were in Minot was way off. One of my engineers was surprised I had placed myself so high (get cut sooner) on the list, basically came down to politics, a game I don't play.
But this morning in the wee hours of the AM this particular list I was working on was special. It was a collaborative effort between the Minot and Wiliston people on my crew. Everyone went on there. We got the names of all the support people let go and crossed them off. More could be eliminated but all the roles were covered and they were declared "safe" for the time being. Now we had went to ranking the engineers and operators.
One of the most obvious things we saw was that we had way too many engineers. The other, was that were no "bad" people left. I did this only another couple of hours before shift change.... That time passes. "[me], you need to text [my boss] on the ride back." One of my engineers wouldn't even enter the trailer to say, "Good morning." I knew it happened. If you're curious what to look for, generally a bunch of things out of the norm: you need to speak to the boss with no specifics given, the guy that hates you says, "hi," looks of people like they're at your funeral, the silence of their mourning... in this case the text and a friend not greeting me... and then the newbie engineer let it slip out in the truck on the way back... but I already called out my shop manger on it and knew.
The Transition
I was rather relieved it happened. I had been stressing about it for some time, now I didn't have to worry anymore. I had wanted to get some things done at my parents' place that took some time (but not this much time
) and could now focus on that. The shop manager was rather accommodating. I was given plenty of time to move out. Having come to ND with a large and small backpack in my car I had amassed quite and amount of stuff. Here's a pic of stuff I was moving to Williston from Minot. One of the engineers let me load up a logging unit with my things since it was heading over.... and I had already taken over a few loads in pickups.
Car, motorcycle, stuff... was really trying to find an alternative to a U-Haul with a tow dolly. That was dang expensive. In the end that's all I could figure that would move everything in one go. Apparently though I didn't need this because I got a major major traffic violation. And came back to ND about 4 times.... but more on that soon...
"Soon" / The Aftermath
So this little incident happened 3 days after I got laid off. Court dates, all that nice stuff. The first thing I did after it happened was get my home state's license and get rid of my CDL. Why? Because once upon a time I use to get tickets all the time and decided enough is enough. For 15 years managed to get no tickets, I get my CDL and come to ND; once again they fall from the sky into my lap. (Okay, not quite. But for someone who made an effort to change habit and maintained that change it seems quite ironic to me.)
These aren't normal tickets. When I got pulled over for speeding years ago I'd get like 11 over, 13 over. Things like that. In ND: 21 over, 28 over, things I'd never get anywhere else. Basically whenever I got pulled over I'm one point away from suspension. I went from "normal" tickets to no tickets for 15 years to almost getting my license suspended 3 times in three years!!!!! I figured it was bad luck and signed my CDL away (and/or that signs in ND are lacking, in stupid places, etc).
I leave ND the worst way possible: I have to come back many times, part of the comments people have mentioned to me in this thread and in PM's I feel I have betrayed them, basically feel I got the boot out the door "It was fun while it lasted... now get out and don't come back!!!" (me driving again commercially pretty much done), on-and-on.
Well after 16,000 miles, a bunch of money in lawyer fees, the help of old coworkers, and putting my life on hold for 4 months the outcome wasn't so bad. Except now... I have no CDL. That decision was made a little to hastily.
I would like to return to where I was. I set myself up good.
Now that unemployment is approaching its end (well two months to go, plenty of time to make something happen) I find myself in almost the same place I was prior to coming to ND except the following:
- I have a positive net worth (but zero lifestyle change).
- I completely tore my Achilles.
- My car is now three different colors. (Has nothing to do with this last "incident.")
- I became obese.
No really, I did. The beginnings anyway.
- Cleaning my parents' house because... only I can? This is just the start...
- Remodelling their bathroom because of a leak. It started out as a much better and disgusting story that someone peed and didn't clean it up but it was a leak.
- I now have a....
Sometimes I wished I stayed in Alaska. Simple life. My old "place:"
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(Got my money back though... took some time.)
The end?
