1) Being the boss, and a lady one at that
2) Free food, anytime of the day - including 6 meals, and all the bought biscuits/cook's cookies/cake I can eat all day
3) Having my laundry done, room tidied every single day, and bathroom scrubbed every single week
4) Smiling almost every moment of the day, just because there are people to smile to
5) Daily exercise without even realizing it
6) Sea breezes/wind - I remember my walkabouts every morning - with the wind in my face, my pumps running, the turbines roaring away - I really felt - not only did I belong, I owned this place. Yeah cocky I know, but I did
7) Dropping onto bed at night exhausted but so fulfilled - all I needed was my phone call to AK (my room had a phone that calls out! - one of 2 in the whole platform that does)
8) Joking over the walkie-talkie - we'd poke each other over the radio, laugh and had a whole lot of fun. It seldom felt like real work when there was so much joking and laughing and general fun-having. Everything feels like an adventure, and fresh when we did
9) Morning meetings at 6 in the morning, when everyone is still groggy and struggling to concentrate, and our Radio Operator would make funny sounds when he tested out the microphone for the OIM
10) Making announcements over the PA system - "Attention Operations Crew" would be turned into "Attention Operation Screw" and everyone would crack up
11) Troubleshooting in the wee hours of the morning with the guys - working till exaustion and getting frustrated that every damn thing we tried seemed to be unable to work, struggling to get the system back. But we were never angry, never snapped or so much as glanced at one another in any way other than grinning and smiling. People not so in the know have the general impression that offshore folk are a bunch of short tempered no-mercy people, but at F23 I have never experienced anything other than civility, friendliness and a whole lot of fun. Woe betide you if you can't take a joke, though
12) The fact that I could never take myself too seriously when I was with these guys. They taught me that work can be fun, that colleagues can be so much more than colleagues -- they can be friend, and so much more - they can actually be family
13) Lunchtime conversations - talking about anything and everything. I have heard stories about one guy's wife who thinks he's cheating on her, one guy who thinks his wife is cheating on him, fishing tales, travel tales, farming tales, cock-fighting, four-wheel-drive buying, stories about cats, kids, rambutan farms, man and wife relationships - how their wives cope with their husbands not around more than half the time, the rising prices of property in Miri (and advice on house buying). I've learned so many life lessons on the lunch table
14) Watching the Thomas Cup badminton match together, cheering like mad along with everyone else
15) Offshore work hard play hard - we'd take half a day off once a fortnight and the guys would set up the karaoke set and belt out tunes like there's no tomorrow. There'd be dancing and Mexico waves and the general slaughtering of cheesy 80's tunes.
16) The adrenaline rush when we solved an issue or found the bloody problem with the *&%^ pump that refuses to run - there's nothing like it
17) Starting up the platform after a shutdown in the middle of the night - it'd be just us and and the silent platform soon to transform into a gas producer. We'd be running around starting the motors, opening valves, and the grand finale - starting our Boeing 737 gas turbine engine, which, when starting, sounds exactly like a plane taking off. Thus the guy manning the PC starting the turbine is would be nicknamed the "pilot". We'd camp out in the room there (cos it takes abotu two hours to start it - if we're lucky) and someone would bring drinks and snacks if the startup took too long.
18) There is no feeling like it - the rush of adrenaline when starting up or solving the problem, then the endorphin rush when we revel in the victory and high-five each other when we get it done. Man, I will never have this feeling again I think. This takes some solid comraderie, and of course, fun all around.
19) Having a friend in the next room. For 2 years I slept in my cosy (read: tiny) single room with one of my OT's next door, a wall separating us of course. Since I am the clumsiest WS in the history of F23, many a time my dropping things would wake himup. He would then knock on the wall, a sign asking me if I am ok. It was nice to have someone next door who cared.
20) Not having to give a damn about how I looked or what I wore - coveralls, hair in a bun or cut short (I even cut my own hair once when I felt it was too long). Not having to worry about what to wear (aargh, I hate that I have to spend time on this every now - looking presentable). No need to spend money on makeup, hair gel, fancy shmancy stuff.
21) Being away from civilization for 2 weeks also safely means that I don't spend any $$ at all for 2 weeks. Which expains how I managed to save and invest quite a nice sum of it :)
22) My offshore allowance!!
23) Learning to speak Iban, and cracking the crew up every time I attempt to speak it - why, I don't know but it really makes my day to crack them up
I'm not sure I'm able to ever get over leaving my second home. Offshore life might be tough in some ways - I think I aged more than a few times the years I spent offshore, but I loved the company, and the work. I loved running up and down the platform, seeing this, saying that, just being so busy that there was no time to think - living in the moment every single second. I loved surviving on a combination of caffeine and adrenaline. I loved climbing like a monkey all over the glycol regen skid. I loved scaling the KA crane and the getting jelly legs up there - but the view! I loved staying up all night in the mighty cold KA equipment room trying to start up the gas turbine. I loved it when we were all sprawled on the floor of the room due to exaustion and frustration - that we were in it together. I loved going to office do's with my crew - moving in a group and feeling like we were a gang or something. I loved our teambuilding dinners where we would sit together at a table cos we did not fit in anywhere else. I loved the frequent SMS-ing when we were onshore. I love the morning meetings, when it would my turn to divvy up the work for the day, when I would say good morning and it would a resounding chorus "Good Mo-or-rning"I loved that even that could be fun, cos we decided that it would be, just like that.I loved confiding and complaining to my crew, and they'd listen and then confide and complain too.
I guess God really blessed me when He decided that I should go there. I never thought that I'd fit in. In fact I always thought of myself as someone ruthlessly ruthlessly professional and efficient, and that that was the only way to be at work, that the work was all that mattered.
Now I know better. The team matters. The cook matters. The painter matters. The boat people matter. They matter. People matter. Once one realizes what really really matters, then the work just flows thereafter.
