This is part 2 of a 3 part story about briefly working in the oil fields of North Dakota and eastern Montana. I have a lot of takeaways and lessons learned that I’ll share after the story is complete.
We continued to drop off applications and resumes at different offices throughout town and started putting together a picture of what life in Williston and the oilfield was like. There was a constant drone of semis rolling down the road and you could feel the ground vibrating from heavy equipment being moved to new job sites. It felt like a scene from a military movie; the dirty town was loud, dirty, and rough. The population was disproportionately male dominated, with thousands of workers coming in from out of state to fill the demand for labor. The unemployment rate was low, but unfortunately there wasn’t much to do other than work. Brand new diesel trucks ran the streets, oilfield money fueling extravagant purchases justified by pulling a job trailer a couple of miles every other week.
Towards the end of the day after dropping off applications at a few more job sites, we headed back to our camping spot outside of town. On our we saw a town billboard announcing a city sponsored buffalo feed. The ‘feed’ was to take place the next day at the city park and was free for anyone to attend. This came at a great time as my bag of quarters was beginning to get low and we hadn’t exactly been participating in three square meals a day since we had begun this trip. We arrived back at our camping spot and spent the evening like we had the last; laying in the tent looking out at the barren landscape and wondering if this whole ordeal was worth it at all.
James, my roommate whose bronco we used to get to here, was from California and had played football for Boise State. We met at a bible study in Boise and later on became friends and roommates. Our other traveling companion, Brandon, was from Washington and we met at the same bible study. The house we shared back in Boise was a typical college house, 6 guys paying minimal rent, doing school and side jobs and going on adventures every weekend. Even though it had only been a week, that life all seemed very far away while lying in this hot tent on the side of the road.
The next morning we headed over to the park for the buffalo feed. It was a lunch feed, but we figured there wasn’t any harm in showing up early, especially since we had literally nothing else going on. When we arrived at the park we found out that the park allowed camping and we decided that the grass and shade of the park was a much better operating base than the desert outside of town and set up our camp once more and waited for lunch.
While occupied in our usual pastime of sitting and staring at the top of our tent, we were surprised to see one of the project managers that we had given job applications to show up with his family. He saw our camp setup and laughed at us waiting for free food in the park.
“I was in your shoes when I first came out to work in the oilfield, and someone was kind enough to help me out and get me started. Tell you what- if you’d like you are free to use my camper trailer that’s parked in front of my house. I’m not using it right now and would be glad to help you guys get started”.
Our other roommate Brandon had decided to fly back home to pursue a job opportunity that had come up, but James and I were still determined to find a job in the oilfield and decided to accept the generous offer. This encounter was a stark contrast to the fast paced, first-come, first-served mindset that we had experienced on the trip thus far; and was a kind gesture that really helped make the next few days more bearable. We were both happy to finally have a couple of beds to sleep in and experienced some truly gracious hospitality. We ate dinners with him and his wife, played with his children in the yard in the evenings, and he sent out our resumes to friends and coworkers in case any good job openings became available.
After a few days of staying in the trailer we got a call back from the company that I had arranged an interview with prior, and we were both offered jobs working on the same crew. We could start immediately and would be provided with company housing on site at minimal cost. We would be doing surface drilling- prepping sites and sealing of the water table so that large drill rigs could come in and drill for oil. We thanked our new friend for he and his wife’s hospitality, said our goodbyes, and moved our stuff over to our new quarters.
The company housing was typical construction trailer living along with the typical rough crowd that came with it. We walked in and were introduced to the guys. Each of them was from a different state and most had been working in the oilfield for multiple years. Some of them were married and had families who they only saw a couple of times a month, some of them had girlfriends back home and girlfriends here for good measure. A company code of conduct hung in the living room listing expectations for workers using company housing: “Don’t drink on company property, don’t store your guns on company property, don’t bring prostitutes back to company property.” I took a deep breath and James and I went and found our bunks. I lay in the bed and stared at the ceiling and started mentally preparing for this new life. I was beginning to miss working for my family and church friends back home and again questioned if this whole trip was worth it.
