Post: #4251

There's positives, I know most journeyman will be making close to 100k even this year. I'm just starting to lose it mentally, unlike native albertans, I moved away from my friends and family to tough it out alone here and its draining compounding with working in the trades working out of town. I've got some good friends here, but essentially I'm alone in a place where I don't really know anyone and find it hard to connect with people who grew up here.

Post: #4252

Jack Of All Trades, you'd have an easier time grinding it out here if you'd start drinking more and doing drugs like the rest of us. Trades work and sobriety don't really go together too well. In other news, after getting run off that last sight I picked up a job on the way back to Edmonton, its gone longer than planned ($$$$) and I may not have a day off before I have to drive 11 hours north on Sunday to begin a two week shut down. Once that's done I'll be driving another 10 hours back to Etown where I have a 4 week plus shut down lined up in early May. So despite the setback a couple of weeks ago I've managed to stay busy and will be working steady until June at least. I may bounce around western Canada all summer chasing small jobs and camping/fishing, there'll be more shut downs in the fall in Alberta and I've heard about some nuke work in Ontario too. Either way if you're ticketed up and willing to work out of town you should make some half decent coin this year boys.

Post: #4253

I jusr re-read JOAT's depressing posts, holy fuck I need a drink just reading those downer posts but I did burst out laughing with the story about pipefitters working at Wal-Mart HAHA, get the fuck out of here with that shit. Those sob stories are entertaining and all over the news, ya it sucks but Jesus, Mary and Joseph, we just had a ten year boom and these dumb fucks forgot to save a few bucks for a rainy day. Well I guess now its time for these small towns Albertans to work away from home for the first time in their lives, at least they can drivehome in a few hours.

Post: #4254

Drive up to cold lake and head to the wal mart and ask the greeters, I laughed too it's pretty black humor.

Post: #4255

Guys I just got off the phone with a buddy in Edmonton and he told me that the times are so tough in the oil patch that there's a journeyman welder down in Nisku who is sucking cock for bus fare THEN WALKING HOME!

Post: #4256

(04-14-2016 12:42 AM)scotian Wrote:  Guys I just got off the phone with a buddy in Edmonton and he told me that the times are so tough in the oil patch that there's a journeyman welder down in Nisku who is sucking cock for bus fare THEN WALKING HOME!

HAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA

I haven't posted in a year but this made me sign in hahaha

Yeah times are tough and working in trades isn't glamorous but it's a choice we made. People on work visas might have an excuse that they don't have much choice but Canadians can always go back to uni or try something else especially young guys.

Nobody owes you anything!

I don't see myself doing this long term but it could be an awesome launch pad to venture into other avenues, you can easily work hard for a few years and go back to uni and not worry about tuition fees or you can start your own thing or take some time off for a year or 2 while you prepare your next move. Try pulling the same thing while being an office drone on $40k, I should know because that's my background. Even in these "gloomy" times my senior has pulled in more than $50k already and it's April.

The most successful people in the patch are the ones who've very clear set out goals for themselves (getting their tickets each year etc or making a certain amount of $$$ and then getting out) and who moan less and move more.



I started working here right after uni and the patch has taught me quite a few lessons and most importantly it gave me the opportunity to become Canadian as I recently got my immigration approved so I definitely owe that to the patch and the great Scotian

Post: #4257

Hustler when the fuck are we gonna finally meet up for a beer, are you still in Edmonton?

Post: #4258

Also when I talk about how shitty it is here, it's just comparing it to how it was during the boom. Even though alberta is a dump the job opportunities are still helluva lot better than other places in canada and maybe the world. The issue with a lot of trades guys is that they come from relatively poor backgrounds, lets face it, a lot come from white trailer trash. They can't deal with money, especially when your making 5k a week on projects, they're gona piss it away on dumb shit; so obviously they go broke when they got 5-10k in bills a month when their pay gets cut from 200k to 80-100k a year. My head still spins when people tell me they can't live off 100k a year here in alberta. People suddenly become nigger rich and can't deal with bad times, that's the gist of it.

Honestly, edmonton for work is still better than my hometown of montreal, I may make only 50-60k but I can get 1-2 months off a year entirely when it's slow at the very least.

Post: #4259

Working trades has both its its pros and cons but the pros outweigh the cons. Get into something like hvac, plumbing, or electrician and you have a lifelong skill that you can take wherever you go. Not to mention someday set up shop and be your own boss. And if for some reason you would like to pursue something else and it doesn't work out you will always have something to fall back on.

Post: #4260

(04-14-2016 12:44 PM)Jack Of All Trades Wrote:  People suddenly become nigger rich and can't deal with bad times

Post: #4261

I think we're witnessing our first ever RVF Oil Sands melt down, could one of you Edmonton guys take JOATs out for a beer, maybe give him a hug or something?

Post: #4262

(04-13-2016 07:48 PM)Jack Of All Trades Wrote:  There's positives, I know most journeyman will be making close to 100k even this year. I'm just starting to lose it mentally, unlike native albertans, I moved away from my friends and family to tough it out alone here and its draining compounding with working in the trades working out of town. I've got some good friends here, but essentially I'm alone in a place where I don't really know anyone and find it hard to connect with people who grew up here.

I agree with him though. I never wanna go back to Edmonton, especially after everyone from the forum left it's just super boring and I also don't drink lol. I felt the same as him last winter especially working a 9 to 5 in town, doing the same shit every day.

Post: #4263

I was depressed as shit living in Edmonton last year, glad I moved back to Calgary. I guess if you want more industrial work though Edmonton is the place to be.

Post: #4264

The Late great Mordechai Richler wrote this about Edmonton thirty years ago: “The capital of Alberta is a city you come from, not a place to visit, unless you happen to have relatives there or an interest in an oil well nearby. On first glance, and even on third, it seems not so much a city as a jumble of a used-building lot, where the spare office towers and box-shaped apartment buildings and cinder-block motels discarded in the construction of real cities have been abandoned to waste away in the cruel prairie winter.

“If Canada were not a country, however fragmented, but, instead, a house, Vancouver would be the solarium-cum-playroom, an afterthought of affluence; Toronto, the counting room, where money makes for the most glee; Montreal, the salon; and Edmonton, Edmonton the boiler room. There is hardly a tree to be seen downtown, nothing to delight the eye on Jasper Avenue.”

Post: #4265

I am now looking at an 8 year dam construction project in Northern BC, this oil and gas downturn is making me look elsewhere. If you guys are looking for work just google Peace River Hydro Partners and you will see for yourself what is going on up there

Post: #4266

^Yup, apparently the job is just ramping up now, its not fully manned yet. The company I'm working for now has guys up there on a call out basis, I'm going to look into it some more I'd love to get on a BC based rotation gig.

Post: #4267

I just finished a job where some pretty bad drama happened, apparently a bunch of the guys went to a bar and a pipe fitter beat the shit out of a foreman, sucker punched then stomped him while he was pissing in the washroom, fucking scum bag. I guess the poor fucker is still in the hospital and may have some permanent damage, hopefully that asshole gets kicked out of the union. Anyway just a reminder to watch out on site, be civil and don't be a rat as I said on the first page of this thread there's some pretty hard tickets in the trades.

Post: #4268

(04-14-2016 09:39 PM)scotian Wrote:  I think we're witnessing our first ever RVF Oil Sands melt down, could one of you Edmonton guys take JOATs out for a beer, maybe give him a hug or something?

What about the great Scotian melt down of 2013?

Post: #4269

Was talking with a lineman from ATCO last week and he said consumption is down 23% YOY in the Patch. That is a pretty good indicator of whats going on.

Post: #4270

(04-18-2016 10:15 AM)scotian Wrote:  ^Yup, apparently the job is just ramping up now, its not fully manned yet. The company I'm working for now has guys up there on a call out basis, I'm going to look into it some more I'd love to get on a BC based rotation gig.

Got a phone interview with PRHP on Sunday. Apparently the rotation is 21/7 but changing to a 16/12, flight from Vancouver, Kelowna, Calgary and Edmonton. Camp is built by Atco and top notch. I read an article saying some BC residents and NDP is pissed because they are hiring outside of BC too. NDP has stated they would try and axe the project if they were elected in 2017, fucking communists!!!

Post: #4271

Good luck with the interview and keep us posted man, I'd love to fly in and out of Kelowna, the Okanagan is awesome!

Post: #4272

Thanks brother! I guess my only concern would be the pay (lower than oil & gas), and what airline I'd be taking (bringing my testosterone and nootropics).

Post: #4273

Don't worry about the airline, I smuggle dope across Canada all the time but you'll have to worry about on-site security checks at the work site camp although as far as I know, BC is a lot more lax on that stuff than Ab is. Slap a Vitamin B12 label on your test vial and you should be ok.

Post: #4274

Well some how made it back to CNRL again. Fuck me

Post: #4275

Are you on maintenance or working on the expansion at CNRL?