....continued: So the next day I wake up hungover and meet the boys for brunch and Bob informs me that there's a big concert in some butt-fuck town called "Cadillac Saskatchewan", about 60 kms away. The main act was "Corb Lund and the Hurtin' Albertans", they're actually quite popular, for you guys who aren't familiar with them (I sure wasn't), this is their most popular song:





So we take the work truck and drive down to Cadillac and go inside the community hall at around 10pm and the show was on and the place was packed. Red necks from miles around came all the way to Cadillac (population, 100 people) for the big show and it was actually pretty good, Bob and I were pounding beers and by the time the show was over we were both pretty drunk, I went to piss and when I came back, the fucker was nowhere to be seen. Everyone was leaving the place and they were shutting it down so I went out to the work truck to see if he was there, he wasn't but it was open and the dumb fucker just left the keys inside. It was November on the Canadian prairies so the temperature was quite cold, probably around -15, so I started up the truck to keep warm and eventually fell asleep.

A couple of hours later, Bob shows up, opens the driver side door and wakes me up by screaming "what are you doing you little fucker, no sleeping allowed", in his arms he has a big paper bag and I ask him what the fuck he's doing. "I got a 40 of vodka and some orange juice from the bootlegger, lets get drunk!" He takes out the bottle and its already half gone, I turned down his kind offer of more booze and thought to myself "this guys is a maniac, I can't believe I'm in this situation right now."

I was already drunk and done for the night, I just wanted to go home but he was fucking wasted and we were 60 kms from our motel, in the middle of nowhere. So I ask him what the fuck are we gonna do, I"m too drunk to drive and he's even drunker, then he tells me "I have an aunt and uncle who live around here somewhere, lets go sleep at their place".

So there we are at 2am driving drunk as fuck (I've still yet to be a passenger in a vehicle driven by someone that drunk) down these rural Saskatchewan roads in a huge Ford F-350 truck loaded up with at least $50K worth of work gear. He almost put it in the ditch a few times and was all over the road, I was shitting my pants. Of course, he had a hard time finding his uncle's place, as he hadn't seen the guy in about ten years.

He ends up going into a few different houses and knocking on their doors at 3am, I thought for sure we were going to get shot by some pissed off farmer, but the people were actually very nice and his uncle is well known so they gave us directions. Of course since he's so drunk, we take wrong turns and he has to go back to other random farm houses to get directions.

Finally at around 5am we arrive at his family's house and they welcome us in, I head to sleep right away and we wake up at around 9am and his aunt (she's around 70) cooks us breakfast. We then head out into his uncle's cow pasture to check out the Angus cows he raises and Bob and his uncle engage in some farm talk jargon which I don't understand.

So we survived and I worked with Bob for another three weeks or so before we were finished for the year. I ended up getting laid off from that company too and had to move up to Edmonton, where I ended up for another year. I worked in town and was home every night for almost a year until I headed up to Fort Mac for my first oil sands gig and the drama continued for the next three years.......

Hey guys its my 3rd week in edmonton, just worked my second day at my job. I got a job doing maintenance, I just finished a small job that started yesterday and finished today. I really like the people I work for, I don't think any of them are crazy like the stories above. They're very serious however, I later found out a lot of the guys are ex military. I kind of lucked out when I was dropping off resumes last week and the general manager was talking to the secretary, I gave them both my resume. He took a look asked me to come with him and I basically had an interview, they scheduled a piss test the day after; I then had a 2nd interview monday, got the job and spent the entire afternoon doing paperwork for my employment + orientation because I started the day after. I never tinkered around with cars much so buying a beater was a total nightmare! I bought a beater for 800$ that had a TON of problems that I didn't foresee, luckily it still drives, I bought another car thats better and I'm scrapping the first one tomorrow. I don't regret getting ripped off for the first car cuz I wouldn't have gotten my job without it.

My first week was a total wash, Didn't get any meaningful applications but I got all my documents sorted out and bought a car, I only hit the pavement hard in my 2nd week. I guess I'm one of the luckier ones, either way I can't wait to get my first paycheck as my savings are almost gone!

Double post

Any new Ironworkers on here? I haven't been on the site for a while.

After a few years pondering going out to Alberta I have decided to seriously make the move out there in a few months. Realizing that I want to travel a good 4-5 months a year I figure this is one of the best ways to do it while still earning a respectable amount. With the 50 pages of info here, (could almost be sold as an information ebook) it is literally everything you need. I am deciding between a few options and will either enroll in a pre employment course in Edmonton or use some connections I have and get a labour job right away. I was looking into NDT, pipe fitter or electrician. NDT looks good because it seems interesting, there is a 5 day course you can take to get started and also there is demand for it in Canada and many other places in the world. After replenishing my bank account a bit from my Asia trip I will be heading out hopefully in August-September. Maybe I can score something nice for the fall shut down. I look forward to sharing my updates and progress as others have on here. I am also looking forward to hearing more oil patch horror stories!

(04-11-2013 02:11 PM)Kdog Wrote:  With the 50 pages of info here, (could almost be sold as an information ebook) it is literally everything you need.

Scotian I was thinking about this last night. Ever think of putting out an oil sands ebook? couple of 1000 copies at 5 dollars a hit and you'll be enjoying some more dark booty down in asia for a few more months.

(04-11-2013 07:23 PM)Irishman Wrote:  

(04-11-2013 02:11 PM)Kdog Wrote:  With the 50 pages of info here, (could almost be sold as an information ebook) it is literally everything you need.

Scotian I was thinking about this last night. Ever think of putting out an oil sands ebook? couple of 1000 copies at 5 dollars a hit and you'll be enjoying some more dark booty down in asia for a few more months.

Ya I thought about it, but I'd rather troll this thread with Oil Sands Horror Stories and report about my exploits in the travel forum. I do enjoy writing, but it seems like a lot of work and although I wouldn't mind making $10,000 or so (couple 1000 copies at 5 dollars each), I can make that in two good weeks working a shutdown.

Who knows though, maybe when I get back to work and have nothing better to do I'll sit down and write an Ebook, maybe I'll do the Tim ferris thing and outsource the writing to some Filipino or Indian, or maybe I could get Neil Skywalker to write it for me, he could probably use the extra cash, no wait, bad idea!

The piss test, my boss and my penis:

As I've alluded to in other posts on this forum I used to be stoner of epic proportions and puffed ganja on a daily basis. Well as I've matured and my career progressed, I had to give it up (ok I still puff once in a blue moon when I`m not working) because as you guys are aware, piss testing (pre-employment, post incident, reasonable suspicion) is standard in the oil sands. This is the story of how I learned the hard way and finally decided to give up the toking.

Summer of 2009: By now I'm settled in Edmonton and working in town, mostly at fabrication shops around the city. I'm working night shift with a solid crew of heavy metal head bangers, there's about a dozen of us and the crew is entirely East Coast Canadians and all of us smoke dope, it was basically a requirement if you wanted to fit and being the pot head that I was, I was in like Flynn. It was basically like an episode of the Trailer Park Boys, except we were doing industrial shop work, blasting Slayer on the boom box and sneaking out for doobies as we did our work, which we did quite well, despite the drug use.

After a few months of this I was getting bored of the routine and realized that these guys I`d been working with had all been doing the exact same thing for several years and hadn`t progressed in their careers, the weed was probably a contributing factor. So I went into the big boss`s office one day and told him that I needed a change and would like to head up north to work out of the Fort McMurray office and stay in camp. He said he`d look into it but told me to study for a piss test. Basically this means getting off the ganja and this can take a few weeks to do, my boss knew that I was a stoner, having smoked me up on several occasions outside of work.

So I gave up the toking and a couple of weeks later my boss calls me up and tells me there`s an unscheduled shut down going on up north that he wants me to go on in a few days. One of the first things he asks me is if I can pass a piss test and I assured him that I could.

Well I wasn`t sure, I was sweating bullets as the piss test day approached, I was drinkign tons of water, taking cranberry pills, researching how long it takes THC to leave the body, etc. In the end, I decided to buy a bag of synthetic urine, which one of my friends (also an epic stoner) told me worked for him every time. So off to the head shop I went and I bought an $80 bag of fake piss, something like this: http://cleanstreamurinekit.com/

The big day arrived and I got my bag of fake piss ready: I laid it out on a table, put on the heat warmers and watched the temp strip increase, except it wasn`t getting warm enough. Now as any of you who have done piss test knows, the urine has to be a certain temperature (96F I think) and thats the first thing they measure, if its above or below, you fail. The time is quickly approaching and I`m fucking panicking, why the fuck isn`t it getting up to temperature?. I have no time left and have to go, so I strap the kit on and go to the test centre, before I left my car I took one last look at the temp strip and it still wasn`t up, although it was getting there.

So I went inside and did the piss test, the lady doing the test informs me within about 30 seconds of handing her my cup of piss that the temperature is off and I failed, fuck! So what now I ask (I`m really worried now because I know my boss will be PISSED if I fail) and she tells me I`ll have to wait an hour, drink some water and then one of their male employees will have to witness me urinating into a cup. Damn, I can`t believe this is happening.

***TIP: the reason I fucked it up is because instead of leaving the stupid thing on the table to heat up with the heat pads, you`re supposed to put the thing on an hour before and your body heat will also warm it up. What I should have done when I first arrived was to tell them I didn`t need to pee, stall for time and let my body warm the thing up, but I was too stressed and not thinking straight at the time.

Anyway, I`m sitting in the lobby of this piss test centre and after about an hour, my boss walks in and he doesn`t look too happy. Also, this guy stands at about 6`5, over a foot taller than me and can be quite intimidating. He asks me whats up and I tell him I fucked up the test with a piss kit but will be doing another one shortly, he asks me if I think I can pass and I say yes, he`s not very impressed.

I then asked him what he was doing there and he says that the piss testers called him to come down there regarding my issue. Then the lady comes over and informs me unfortunately Scotian, our only male employee isn`t working today so we called your boss to come here and he will have to personally witness you urinating in a sample cup.

FUCK ME! So into the small restroom we went, my boss and I and I have to whip out my cock and piss into the cup in front of him, how embarrassing! I`m nervous, he`s pissed off, it was definitely an awkward situation. We go back to the office and he gives me a good dressing down in very non-PC language, you little fucker, I can`t believe I had to go through that, you better pray to God that you pass that fucking test because you`re driving up to Fort Mac tomorrow at 6am and we won`t get the results until noon. If you fucking fail, you can find your own way back to Edmonton and we`ll then discuss your future employment with this company!

Mortified, I head back home and probably had a couple of drinks, but definitely no doobies. I packed my bags and didn`t get much sleep that night, I met my co-worker the next day at 6am and we began the 7 hour drive to site.

At noon my boss calls me and I`m fucking sweating bullets again, he then says ``congratulations you little bastard, you passed the test, good luck working up there and I don`t ever want to see your cock again``. Fuckin eh!!! Apparently all of the water drinking worked and the THC was out of my system and I passed the test, I went on to work 24 days straight, 100+ hours a week and the massive pay cheques I banked got me addicted to the big oil sands money and I haven`t worked anywhere but Fort Mac since.

Lessons learned: Well after that stress, drama and embarrassment, I promised myself I wouldn`t put myself in that situation again. Guys, take it from me, although I like to smoke up, it just isn`t worth it in the end, even though lots of guys still do it on their days off and at work, the rules are getting stricter and some sites such as Suncor are doing random tests these days. Not only are you jeopardizing your own career and potentially costing yourself lots of money (ex: if you fail a test at Suncor, as a contractor you will be banned from all of their sites), you`re fucking with your company`s scheduling and management. When your company asks you if you`re good to go, tell them the truth because these tests usually occur the day before you go to site, if you fail, it leaves them scrambling to find a replacement. This can fuck up their ability to provide their service to the client and your company could
end up losing the contract, you then lose work and your co-workers, many of who are family guys with mouths to feed can lose work too, so keep that in mind.

Boys, I could write another 50 pages in this thread about these stupid stories, the oil patch is a gold mine for retarded behavior!

Guys i see this on an Irish job recruitment website they really must be stuck for service rig workers is this really the case??

Created on: 02/04/2013 | Updated on: 03/04/2013 | Displayed until 03/05/2013 19 days from now

Based in CANADA
Description
Service Rig Floor-hands required for oil well servicing company in Canada. Duties will include: assisting in performing all duties associates with oil/gas well work-over activities. Operate powered tongs, hydraulic air-operated cranes and other power or motorised tools. Assist the senior floor-hands with all aspects of running tubing into and out of an oil well. Keeping the job site clean. Required: Candidates with mechanical aptitude and abilities preferred. Heavy lifting will be involved.

Salary: €27ph CAD - €Neg DOE
Other Benefits:
Excellent working conditions. Overtime available. Flights provided by the Employer. Accomodation arranged by Employer.

Number of Positions
6

Contract Type
Permanent

Days, Hours & Start Date
Days per week: 5
Hours per day: 9
Hours per week: 45
Start Date: May 2013

Experience Required:
Some Experience Required


There going to pay for 600 euro for flights for 6 people from Ireland and also sort out accommodation when they get to canada is this normal? it does not say with what company just gives a recruitment company to contact just said i would post it here to see what ye guys think?

What would the excellent working conditions mean? haha

(04-12-2013 07:14 PM)salmonfella Wrote:  Guys i see this on an Irish job recruitment website they really must be stuck for service rig workers is this really the case??

Created on: 02/04/2013 | Updated on: 03/04/2013 | Displayed until 03/05/2013 19 days from now

Based in CANADA
Description
Service Rig Floor-hands required for oil well servicing company in Canada. Duties will include: assisting in performing all duties associates with oil/gas well work-over activities. Operate powered tongs, hydraulic air-operated cranes and other power or motorised tools. Assist the senior floor-hands with all aspects of running tubing into and out of an oil well. Keeping the job site clean. Required: Candidates with mechanical aptitude and abilities preferred. Heavy lifting will be involved.

Salary: €27ph CAD - €Neg DOE
Other Benefits:
Excellent working conditions. Overtime available. Flights provided by the Employer. Accomodation arranged by Employer.

Number of Positions
6

Contract Type
Permanent

Days, Hours & Start Date
Days per week: 5
Hours per day: 9
Hours per week: 45
Start Date: May 2013

Experience Required:
Some Experience Required


There going to pay for 600 euro for flights for 6 people from Ireland and also sort out accommodation when they get to canada is this normal? it does not say with what company just gives a recruitment company to contact just said i would post it here to see what ye guys think?

What would the excellent working conditions mean? haha

It's cheaper to fly to from Alberta Ireland than to most places in the Maritimes in Eastern Canada.

Ha i no that i just taught it seems odd that there willing to pay flights and accommodation for a starter position job the industry must be really booming i cant imagine in the good times in Ireland company's willing to pay labouerers flights from canada to come work in Ireland.haha

Looks like the Canadian government is facing some pressure lately over the use of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, there was some scandal involving a major Canadian bank hiring Indians or something:

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/04/11/...a-politics

Not sure how this could potentially affect any skilled tradesmen wanting in on the oil sands cash or the Filipino burger flippers in Alberta because according to this other article, "Alberta town would be 'shut down' without foreign workers": http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/alberta-tow...-1.1236262

(04-12-2013 07:14 PM)salmonfella Wrote:  Guys i see this on an Irish job recruitment website they really must be stuck for service rig workers is this really the case??

What would the excellent working conditions mean? haha

The position they're hiring for is pretty much what I'm doing now. Depending on the type of service rig, they operate all year-round. Due to road bans and such, the mobile service rigs are the ones that get shut down but there are permanent service rigs that still need hands to keep them going. Technically, the starter position on a service rig is a trainee, so you'll be one above that position, and boy do they make you work.

45 hrs per week? Seems like some pretty lax hours, probably due to the shutdown.

The weather's starting to get warmer here, hence their take on 'excellent working conditions', i.e. no extreme cold or heat. Though you may be walking through some thick mud, I guess that depends on the temperature around May time.

Anyway, apply if you haven't already. They say some experience required but I started green, so you should be fine.

Yea mate i sent in a resume for it anyway. yea i was in contact with the recruiter there just a job agency operating on behalf of the company all he said was that it was a huge company and the job would be starting up mid may.

Yea i taught 45 hours did seem to much he said that overtime is available but i don't no would you have to do it or not. when ya back to work and where ya gonna be based?

Horror stories! And you wonder WHY parents don't want their kids getting into such Trades!?

How many horror stories have you heard at an Engineering Firm, an Accounting Firm, to the level you guys are going to be sharing about the Oil Patch? I fully understand why parents steer their children away from it and tell them to go to college or uni.

Have a decent lifestyle as an engineer without the crazies!
Drunk driving...racism...man...and no hotties to boot! ...I'm starting to reconsider all of this, gonna probably upgrade my math skills to get into a Drafting & Engineering program this year.

Please keep sharing the stories anyway.

Also to add to those who want to pursue Trades.

I'm learning about Pipefitting here. Dupont offers a lot of courses. I ordered mine as an online course rather than a dvd, and am still going through it.
http://ecom.training.dupont.com/PFT001-D...ining.aspx

'Cause a lot of companies, well, I'm finding, no one is hiring (been to shops in Nisku, Leduc, and all over Edmonton, following up as well) unless you took some classes or are a registered Apprentice, (some Trades, like Pipefitting, you can't take classes unless you are employed/indentured to a company. SAIT canceled their Pre-Employment Pipefitting course for this year. Classes are not guaranteed to start when they say they are. ) welding, electrician are far easier to get into than Pipefitting. Welding, there's a reason for that, I suspect. Over time your eyes aren't the same. Hence the constant look out for new welders. Electrician...eh, I was told they're "special." Whatever that means.

Either way some resources for practicing for the exams. Trades listed to the left of the practice exams they have available.
http://trades.exambank.com/contact5.html

(04-13-2013 12:01 PM)Albertron Wrote:  

(04-12-2013 07:14 PM)salmonfella Wrote:  Guys i see this on an Irish job recruitment website they really must be stuck for service rig workers is this really the case??

What would the excellent working conditions mean? haha

The position they're hiring for is pretty much what I'm doing now. Depending on the type of service rig, they operate all year-round. Due to road bans and such, the mobile service rigs are the ones that get shut down but there are permanent service rigs that still need hands to keep them going. Technically, the starter position on a service rig is a trainee, so you'll be one above that position, and boy do they make you work.

45 hrs per week? Seems like some pretty lax hours, probably due to the shutdown.

The weather's starting to get warmer here, hence their take on 'excellent working conditions', i.e. no extreme cold or heat. Though you may be walking through some thick mud, I guess that depends on the temperature around May time.

Anyway, apply if you haven't already. They say some experience required but I started green, so you should be fine.

Now there's an under statement if I ever say one, thick mud, the Grande Prairie Gumbo is like fucking concrete once it gets on your boots. The worst is working a pipeline job in the spring, I learned that lesson last year, never again!

Guys, don't cheap out too much on the rubber boots, I go with the Purofort rubbers, although you have to take good care of them as one of my work mates lost one of his in a GPG sink hole last year. We tried for an hour to dig it out with shovels but it just wouldn't come out, pretty expensive loss, fucking GPG!

Guys, you know how I always go on about SAFETY and how important it is once you get on site, you do what you can when it comes to yourself (wear PPE, attend/participate in tailgate safety meeting, follow the rules, etc). Well, as some of you may have heard, there was a major incident in Waco, Texas yesterday, a fertilizer plant blew up and killed at least 60 people:





Very sad day and my thoughts and prayers are with the families of of the lost ones, but one thing I want you guys to realize is that if you're thinking about looking for work in the oil sands, you too will be exposed to these kinds of incidents. I don't want to scare anyone off, but there's no way around it, working at these heavy industrial sites can be dangerous, although rare, incidents like that do occur, sites fucking blow up every once in awhile!

I posted about one such incident earlier in the thread, when the CNRL Horizon oil sands upgrader blew the fuck up, thankfully no one was killed, but five were seriously injured, including one young guy who had only been hired a few days earlier, he got put in a hospital during his first ever oil sands hitch. Ya, me and the guys at work made a shit ton of cash during the ensuing nine month shut down, but it scared the shit out of me and even now, I'm still leery about working on the live sites.





WORK SAFE GUYS!

I have done a few courses for my chosen trade and the tutors lecturing it were both veterans in the field. Both had plenty of stories to tell and it all boils down to one corrupting factor: some managers have a blatant and cavalier disregard for human life.

There was an explosion in WA state a few years ago that took out 7 or so people, some slowly. The machine that exploded was leaking steam ao instead of repairing it the company had some unskilled labourers blasting steam back into it. It blew up in the end....

Another issue is the unsafe control of gamma sources for radiography testing. Some impressionable people are more interested in chrome for their truck over their unsafe gamma ray exposure.

All you need to do is use your common sense and observe which sites are dodgy and which ones are not. AB employment laws declare the right to refuse unsafe work. Work safe guys!

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/36146392/ns/us...last-fire/

There it is, I got some details wrong from my memory but trust me this was 100% corporate manslaughter.

I'm a junior mechanical engineering major with nothing to do this summer. Do you think there'd be any seasonal/temporary work for someone like myself?

If you're a US citizen, no chance. Go instead to North Dakota. If you're a Canadian citizen, give it a try, you never know.

(04-21-2013 02:42 PM)MasoMenos Wrote:  I'm a junior mechanical engineering major with nothing to do this summer. Do you think there'd be any seasonal/temporary work for someone like myself?

When I worked at Baker Hughes in their chemical blending plant in Calgary, a few days later one of their locations in the USA BLEW the F*CK UP! They had a new HSE at the Calgary plant, and she looked around and said, pretty much the mess in the chemical blending area in Calgary was similar to the mess that led to the plant blowing up in the American location! I promptly quit!

Saw this advert in a local newspaper they are recruiting big time from ireland right now


Jobs Available in Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada

Apply now with your CV for any of the positions below. Interviews will be held in in the next few weeks.

Flights, insurance, accommodation & food all paid for
Excellent Hourly Rate
Overtime is time and half
Work 10 weeks on, 3 weeks off (option to fly home to Ireland for each break period)
Flights back to Ireland paid for each visit
Work 6 days per week with 1 day off (Mon-Sat)
Start Date

July 2013 for 12 months+

Positions available

Positions
Available Hourly Rate
$ CAD Hourly Rate
€ EURO
Entry level labourer 28.90 21.64
Concrete Finisher 54.04 40.47
Carpenter/Scaffolder $53.48 40.05
Crane Operator (0-65 Ton) $55.12 41.28
Equipment Operator & Piling Rig operator $52.80 39.54
Truck Driver $47.65 35.69
Swamper $42.29 31.67
Electrician/Instrumentation $54.77 41.02
Labourer-Skilled $36.85 27.60
Millwright / Lube Techs $54.77 41.02
Vibe Tech (Millwrights) $76.03 56.94
Pipefitter/Plumber $54.77 41.02
Insulator $52.32 39.19
Ironworker - Structural $54.77 41.02
Welder - CWB $52.30 39.17
Pipefitter Welder - B Pressure $54.77 41.02
Rig Welder - CWB * $86.31 64.64
Rig Welder - B Pressure * $92.11 68.99
Rig Welder - Tig * $100.23 75.07

A rig welder-Tig will be getting payed 100$ an hour that is crazy money

Would not be too bad working 10 weeks in a row sure ya have sunday off every week to chill out.
How are ye dudes getting on out there? scotian are you heading back this year?