grand junction

I just got back from Grand Junction, CO where I've been for basically two days. Let's see, today is Thursday. I left on Tuesday afternoon, a day I had originally called in sick on. I wasn't really sick and I told them as much that morning. I just felt really worn out so I was going to burn a sick day and rest and get some chores done, but if they needed me, I was available. Well, they needed me. Our Grand Junction district was in a bind so they called to see if we could send a supervisor and a pump operator and they would send the cement and meet us at a rig. So around 1700 on Tuesday, one of our supervisors (who would drive and run the pump) and I went for a nice long drive that ended up taking over 10 hours due to some really terrible directions. That was nice of them.

All in all, the actual job was going really well until something really bad from a service quality perspective happened. I say it wasn't our fault simply because it really wasn't our fault. We recovered pretty well and managed to finish the job without the problem leading to serious consequences. By the time we left location, it was about 1700 on Wednesday. Oh, did I mention that while the company man had wanted the cement crew there at 2000 on Tuesday night and we didn't get there until 0500 on Wednesday morning, we still waited for five hours before the rig was ready. I feel like this is also the appropriate time to note that the Grand Junction district had us go to the weirdest client no one has ever heard of, using the most dysfunctional rig within several hundred miles, and that they had already spent 45 days on location to reach a point that most rigs would have reached in two weeks. Again, that was nice of them.

We managed to stumble to the Grand Junction yard around 1930 and were obviously in no shape to drive six hours back to Farmington. And that is why I stayed at a Holiday Inn last night. And while I had to wear the same socks today as I did yesterday, I knew that extra pair of underwear I always carry in my field bag would eventually come in handy.