More Commuting

In the mid 90s, I made several visits to an oil and gas production platform in Cook Inlet, Alaska. My employer owned a majority stake in the facility but did not operate it. Our operating partner had undertaken a major revamp of the facility in order to make it possible to drill into a newly discovered portion of the reservoir and increase production. They had done a poor job of cost estimating and cost control and had no idea what the final costs would be. I was sent there to review the project and try to determine what our share of the final costs would be. Every morning, I would report to the heliport and climb into a neoprene survival suit for the helicopter flight to the platform. The process would be repeated in the evening.

About that same time, our CEO was starting an initiative to revise salaries for his engineers. Some brilliant business school savant had convinced him that oil and gas engineers were overpaid and we should be paid on a par with our counterparts in manufacturing - companies like HP or TI.

Every time I crawled into that damn suit, I said a silent curse to him. I wanted to tell him that when a Hewlett Packard engineer's transportation fails on his way to the office, he calls AAA and gets a tow truck. When my transportation fails, I take a swim in freezing water - and that's why we deserve more money!