Seven years ago today I got my first job in the oil field. I was young and fresh and had no idea what i was getting myself into. looking back now I can honestly say this job is not for everyone. You have to be a special kind of crazy to spend 2/3 of the year away from home, living and working in strange places with strange people. Luckily for me I have had a great support network to keep me sane. The last seven years have been very interesting indeed! I started out working in Oklahoma. In those days oil was doing well and there was lots of work to be had. We lived in modified fifth wheel trailers, where we lived and worked. There was nothing glamours about it but to me it was all new and exciting. After two summers in Oklahoma I was ready for a change and I got it in the form of a job at the extreme ends of the earth in Alaska. With that change came many more. living in man camps, working in subzero temperatures, taking a hover craft to work, having our meals cooked for us. In many ways it was much better but the work was still the same. Then the price of oil died. suddenly everyone I knew was out of a job. I was lucky again. I was only out of the business for a year. That year was great even if it wasn’t very lucrative. So with changing politics and prices back to the patch I went. This time to a new place North Dakota. In someways this was the best of both worlds. good living conditions, good pay, interesting work, and we still get the subzero winters. And that is where I am today.
My first hard hat on day 1. 
My third hard hat today.
So by the numbers when I started seven years ago: the price of WTI oil was $96.15, today it is $55.52, there were 1,975 rigs operating, today there are 1,057, the US produced 5,486 barrels of oil a day, today that number is 12,300. In that time I have worked for 3 companies, in 9 states, and 6 basins. I have worked with countless people almost all of them were great. I still work 12 hours a day, give or take 22 days a month, I make more now that I did when I started but not by much.
I have learned so much in the last seven years and grown in ways I didn’t even know was possible. I wouldn’t trade it for anything but I don’t plan on doing it for another seven years.
