Popping the Stand - An Oil Rig Story

On the second rig I ever worked on, I had gained a certain amount of experience, about eight months worth, and had moved up two steps on the promotional ladder, to motorman. One day a new guy was hired. I was already able to take one look at a new hire and predict whether he would last three days. But this guy was hard to gauge. One of the roughnecks directed the new guy to the change shack - where you change into your work clothes, not where you get coins for the coke machine. He came to work wearing denim jeans and jacket. He told the roughneck he didn't need to change. (And he had his own Coke.) Gossip travels fast on the rigs. That roughneck promptly reported the exchange to the rest of the crew. We had a good laugh at that.

Then the guy made the mistake of commenting to one of the cooks as they watched us perform the operation seen in this video. He told her, "They'll never get me up there doing that." Again, gossip travels fast on the rigs. She told one of the roughnecks, and he told Art, the driller. When Art heard that, he said, "Oh yeah? Well, we'll get him up here for the next connection."

A short while later, we had to "Trip out," I.E. pull all of the pipe out of the hole to change the bit. Art dragged the new guy in his denims up to "the floor" to participate. The holes in the drillbit were plugged, which meant the drilling mud remained in the pipe. Thus, each 18 meter stand was full of drilling mud, about 29 gallons worth, and 18 meters worth of pressure from a column of dense mud. It created a circumstance resembling an elephant with explosive diarrhea.

There were three ways to separate the pipes when they were full of mud. There was a tool called a "mud can" that could be wrapped around the tool joint - the point where two pipes were threaded together. It shunted the unwanted mud off via a hose into the sump. The problem with this approach was it was time-consuming and there was very little tolerance on the rigs for time-consuming activities.

My two co-workers were from rural Ontario. They were decent guys and we worked well together up on the floor. They only had a couple of months in, but they had passed the interview process and we synced well together on the floor. A well-sycned crew and driller is like an orchestra, believe it or not. I can still see the mischieveous grins on their faces as New Guy came up to the floor in his country and western duds. As rotten and miserable as rig work was in those days, we all sensed we were going to have a bit of fun that night, albeit at someone else's expense. At least the guy didn't lose an arm or leg.

A slightly faster method would involve the driller gently separating the two pipes so that most of the mud would just trickle down around the lower pipe, through the rig floor and into the cellar, to be cleaned up by one of the roughnecks later. This was the technique that was used most of the time.

But Art was in a hurry. The three of us with experience donned our yellow slickers in preparation for what we knew was going to be a messy job. The new guy didn't see any need to.

Art decided to use the fastest method, called "Popping the stand." Once the pipes were unscrewed, he would jerk the upper stand loose. If you ever saw the movie "Perfect Storm" with George Cluny, you know what came next, only, this wasn't seawater, it was thick grey drilling mud. About thirty gallons worth in each pop.

That poor new guy in his denim jean outfit was covered in mud from head to toe. Maybe he changed his clothes when he got home.

Art was a real screamer with zero patience which wasn't uncommon in Alberta rig culture in the late 1970s. He wouldn't bother you as long as you did your job, but if not, he was Gunnery Sergeant Lawrence Hartman from Full Metal Jacket. And he could be cruel at times. Maybe that was necessary.

"You fuck up on an oil rig and I goddamn guarantee you a trip out of the lease... in an ambulance! Out here, assholes, you keep your shit wired tight at all times!"

Paraphrasing Sgt. Barnes in "Platoon."

As we unscrewed one of the connections, a narrow stream of mud came squirting out aimed directly at Art in his nice clean orange coveralls. He immediately ordered the new recruit to stand in front of the mud stream, preventing it from soiling Art's coveralls. What the heck, he was already covered in mud, anyway. Art looked at the rest of us with a sly smirk on his face as if to say, "I finally found something this guy is good for."

It was around that time I started to understand why rig job interviews were so short and sweet.

Driller: "You got any experience?"

Applicant: "Yes, I worked roughneck and motors."

Driller: "Go change your clothes." Meaning you're hired.

The real part of the interview lasted over the next three days. If you were still there on Day 4, you passed.

That new guy? He failed the interview. That was the last time we saw him. He fired himself.