Poll of the Day > All the poor people should come work in the oil field

(+) Yeah! (+)

I was poor as fuck after leaving the Army, but I got a CDL(commercial driver's license) and got a job in the oil field as a Vacuum Truck Operator(aka Water Truck Operator) making 72K a year.
Even if you're not skilled enough at operating a motor vehicle to get a CDL, there are plenty of other jobs: Hotshot(driving a regular pick up truck to the lease roads to deliver parts) @ 25k a year, Rastabout(building batteries and such) @65k a year, Well hands(working on the rigs and such) @65k a year, Dispatcher @58k a year, etc...

The pays aren't exact, but the oil field pays pretty well.
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For some reason I now have The Beverly Hillbillies theme in my head.
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That's it? In Alberta being an oil rigger pays a starting salary of $150k.
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faramir77 posted...

That's it? In Alberta being an oil rigger pays a starting salary of $150k.

These jobs are nowhere as dangerous. The biggest danger is the H2S gas, but that's easily preventable.
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"pays well"
"25k"
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Jen0125 posted...

"pays well"
"25k"

It's the easiest job though, those fuckers do not deserve the 25k they get.
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Jen0125 posted...

"pays well"
"25k"

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Pays well for the skill set, duh.

Seriously, they do minimum wage work for that 25k.
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lihlih posted...

I was poor as fuck after leaving the Army, but I got a CDL(commercial driver's license) and got a job in the oil field as a Vacuum Truck Operator(aka Water Truck Operator) making 72K a year.
Even if you're not skilled enough at operating a motor vehicle to get a CDL, there are plenty of other jobs: Hotshot(driving a regular pick up truck to the lease roads to deliver parts) @ 25k a year, Rastabout(building batteries and such) @65k a year, Well hands(working on the rigs and such) @65k a year, Dispatcher @58k a year, etc...

The pays aren't exact, but the oil field pays pretty well.

How long ago was that? I hear a lot of the oil jobs up in the Dakotas and Alberta are gone.
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i've never seen oil job posting

Miroku_of_Nite1 posted...

lihlih posted...

I was poor as fuck after leaving the Army, but I got a CDL(commercial driver's license) and got a job in the oil field as a Vacuum Truck Operator(aka Water Truck Operator) making 72K a year.
Even if you're not skilled enough at operating a motor vehicle to get a CDL, there are plenty of other jobs: Hotshot(driving a regular pick up truck to the lease roads to deliver parts) @ 25k a year, Rastabout(building batteries and such) @65k a year, Well hands(working on the rigs and such) @65k a year, Dispatcher @58k a year, etc...

The pays aren't exact, but the oil field pays pretty well.

How long ago was that? I hear a lot of the oil jobs up in the Dakotas and Alberta are gone.

They are always hiring over here in Texas. Especially if you have a CDL, you'll never have trouble finding a job in the oil field.

Also, 25k is more than enough to live on in Texas.
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yeah but you have to live in fucking texas
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Nah.
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faramir77 posted...

That's it? In Alberta being an oil rigger pays a starting salary of $150k.

And those jobs dried right up in the last few years. My town got hit hard.
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Wanting to live in Texas, feels a bit like choosing to crap your pants right after you've showered and put on clean clothes for the day. :/
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Jen0125 posted...

"pays well"
"25k"

That's defintely "well", outside of the coasts.

Jen0125 posted...

"pays well"
"25k"

To be fair, his "pays well" comment was applying to the overall average, which also included jobs (mostly unskilled) at $58k-72k, which IS fairly significant if you're talking about someone who is currently desperate for money (especially when you take into account the average starting salary of a college grad is only about $50 or so).



Questionmarktarius posted...

That's defintely "well", outside of the coasts.

That's the real trick.

Pay balances with cost of living. So it's arguably better to be making, say, $30k a year in Nebraska than it is to be making $50k per year in New York City.

But $25k a year factors out to about $12 an hour assuming an average regular work schedule (ie, 40-hour work week), which isn't necessarily TOO bad for someone doing minor delivery (it's even better assuming they don't have a college degree, or possibly not even a high school degree). The kicker there is whether or not they're expected to use their own vehicle (which incurs a fair amount of extra usage costs and cuts into profit), or if they're provided a company truck and compensated for fuel costs.

Plenty of people get paid less for doing harder work in areas with even higher cost of living.


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It is actually a very viable option, but the work is certainly not easy. Lisa Ling did a really interesting documentary about it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwUw3hXuJA8
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https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4d/Logo_Edmonton_Oilers.svg/220px-Logo_Edmonton_Oilers.svg.png
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