Selling your soul...

Yeah, so okay...I've been working for the oil industry.



I never saw this one coming, but I got a job working inside a major oil refinery. Now...being from Houston, I wasn't opposed to working for big oil. In fact, I know how well financed the information technology departments within the oil business can be, so I jumped at the opportunity.

Yeah, then they scared the shit out of me.

Turns out this was formerly a Shell Oil refinery. I'm not a big fan of Shell, because of what they did to my father in law, a petroleum worker for well over 25 years. He hasn't got an appendage that doesn't make an ungodly sound when he walks, or a moment in his day when he's not in pain. Of course, 25 years of roughneck work (considered by many to be one of the most physically strenuous jobs you can do) can help destroy the knees, hips, shoulders, and wrists of any man.

If you asked me though, the father of my wife is a man of steel. Long story short, Shell has lawyers, and physicians who all say he is fit for work and can't be considered disabled. They fought him tooth and nail to settled a quarter century of self-destructive, back breaking work with a pitiful sum that leaves him in financial ruin, and without the ability to get a job anywhere.

The man can barely walk.

Either way, this refinery is now owned by a regional diesel fuel provider, and seems to be on the level. They just assumed ownership a few months back, and find themselves trying to untangle the mess that Shell is notorious for making. It's difficult for a corporation like Shell, with that much money and that much bulk, to be very organized. They're well known for this, and when it comes to IT, their solution to support issues was to locally employ about 20 genius coders to program applications that allowed sub-systems and critical systems to communicate.

This meant after years of upgrades, and the general evolution of technology, these wizards would write programs to keep everything working. Custom, mind-boggling, brilliant applications. They're amazing.

And now that Shell is gone, the new company has only two guys to support these applications and the systems they run. Keep in mind that these Shell programmers didn't leave manuals lying around for their custom apps. No, that would be too easy to write a manual and in the cut-throat corporate world of Shell Oil, writing down how to do your job usually meant you could be replaced.

So me and this other guy get brought in to provide basic networking and desktop support to the refinery so that we can get all the mundane support issues out of the way for these two full time techs who have to keep things from going boom. They're nice guys, and aces for sure. They know their stuff. Hell, they've both been teachers at our local higher learning institutions.

And they're up front about how things run around there.

Apparently the director of the department that IT sits under, doesn't understand the first thing about IT. The oldest, and most fragile computer systems are the ones managing the most critical (see: explosive) refinery operations, the water is unsafe for any use, and you might want to fight to get an office with the heavy concrete block construction in the corners...you know just in case.

At lunch, they confide in us how concerned they are about these systems and the responsibility that comes with it. I remember the look on his face when one of the techs said;

"I just kind of can't sleep when I think about the fact that if I don't keep some of these systems up and running, that people will die. It's not like productivity will go down or profit margins will have to absorb service expenditures. People will die."

Oh, and don't forget that a significant amount of the refinery operations with IT support needs are located near areas where Hydrogen Sulfide (H2S) gas can be found. Yeah, you've heard of this stuff. Smells like rotten eggs. Of course the first thing it does to you is destroy your sense of smell -- then it kills you. All within an instant. Yeah, that stuff.

Fuck that!

The saving grace was that they didn't want me to come back. Kayla had already asked me not to return, but I didn't have to bother. They let go of a bunch of their temps at the same time. The new company really needs some more time to organize (and figure out how to make it safe to work there) before my agency thinks it will send anyone else there. In fact, my rep at the agency sounded a little pissed when I told her about the conditions there.

Apparently I'm supposed to report risky work conditions? Go figure.