The drilling crew was divided up into a night shift and a day shift, 12 hours each, 10 days on, 6days off. This work schedule made for some long work stints but was nice because it allowed for workers to stack up hours and overtime, as well as providing enough time (barely) to travel back home and be with family before having to travel back for work. Our drill sites changed weekly and sometimes we’d be working up to 2 hours away from our living quarters. We’d load up in company vans at 4am and drive out to the site in time to begin work at 6am. We’d work 12 hours, get off at 6pm, load back up in the vans and be home by 8pm. We’d barely have time to shower and eat dinner before needing to be in bed to wake up at 3am the next morning and do it all again. Next shift we would be switched to the night crew and the schedule would be the same, we would just swap out a.m. for p.m. Sometimes we’d get lucky and have company housing directly on the jobsite and we could roll out of bed and walk straight over to the drill rig, but these jobs were few and far between.
After a few weeks of working we began to realize that the company we had been hired by did not have the greatest reputation in the area regarding ethical business practices. Our work weeks were staggered so that often we would begin work in the middle of the week. This was done so that our weekly hours would reset before getting classified as overtime. Sometimes we’d get lucky with how the week was staggered, but usually we ended up working many consecutive hours that weren’t counted as overtime because they weren’t within the same seven 7-day block. This resulted in a lot of savings for the company and smaller paychecks for the workers. We also weren’t paid for drive time to the work sites, even when it added an extra 4 hours to our workday. It didn’t take long to catch on to all the ways the company was shortchanging us, but without a lot of other options to turn to and no savings to fall back on while trying to find a position at another company, we just made the best of it as well as we could.
The work was very hard and physical; we were the grunts of the crew and had to quickly learn the different stages of operation, starting with prepping the site and moving through drilling, pulling pipe, and setting casing. Work on the jobsite occurred 24 hours a day regardless of weather. Sometimes it was extremely hot, amplified by being surrounded by massive diesel engines that were ran nonstop. Other times we’d work through lightning storms; giant thunderheads rolling across the prairies and deluging rain and nonstop lighting all night long.
Hours not working were usually spent crashed in the trailer, watching tv or reading. Sometimes when equipment broke down we’d have half days where we’d work in the yard and clean tools and wash down the drill rig. On yard days we could go out to eat or maybe go watch a movie in the evenings after we finished our shift. If we weren’t working our crew-mates would often go out to the strip clubs and come back drunk in the wee hours of the morning and make fun of James and I for not joining.
Life in North Dakota wasn’t entirely miserable, but it was a grind. Physical exhaustion added to the heaviness of poor life choices that surrounded us. The optimism and excitement that surrounded the beginning of our adventure quickly turned into a realization that this was not a good life. No matter the excitement and money I was able to make, there was a darkness and depression present that couldn’t quite be shaken off. Anytime I told someone I was just there for the summer to make some money they would reply: “that’s what I said too but I’m still here; just couldn’t turn down the money.” Others had got themselves into so much debt that they had no choice but to continue working to barely make their minimum payments.
After finishing out the summer I moved back to Boise. I had never so realized the importance to me of community and being close to friends and family. I missed the pace of normal life, of leisure, and a greater purpose to my day than a few more hours of overtime. Looking back there were multiple situations I would have handled differently that I will discuss in my next post; for now it suffices to say that North Dakota served its purpose in my life and it was time to go home.
If I had to choose a word to represent my time in North Dakota it would probably be ‘pensive’. Looking back on the short time spent there, there are many long scenes of geography gradually changing from tall mountain peaks to rippling prairie grasses, sunsets over shimmering fields, and lightning bolts streaking from horizon to horizon; all mixed with flashes of clanking machinery, the humming of heavy diesel engines, and the loud coarse clamoring of men desperately clawing out their idea of a living from the earth. I came to North Dakota for those adrenaline filled bursts of the unknown, but I returned home because of the slow moments where life paused just long enough to see it clearly for a moment.