re: I’m getting about ready to say screw it and become a baw

Only 150,000? you poor, sorry. lol

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get a sales gig

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I have too much pride to ever do sales. To surrender all dignity to customers, become a Type A loudmouth that everyone wishes would stfu, and be under constant pressure of meeting quotas, is not worth the money.

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The Magellan op that was on our last job was getting paid $56/hr plus truck pay, mileage, and per diem. Midstream is where the money is.

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Great hidden point...Gross pay does not equal net. If you are counting reimbursement as income, then it greatly increases the number.

Baw Life is all based on OT and as much of it as a baw can possibly get.

The other day some baw here was counting the company paid health insurance portion as his income total.

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Great hidden point...Gross pay does not equal net. If you are counting reimbursement as income, then it greatly increases the number.

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Solid point. A lot of folk outside the industry see the hourly pay alone.

My hourly pay is relatively low for the industry but the added, untaxable benefits bring my year end total way up. On the other hand there are a lot of companies that dont treat their employees the right way

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Baw math:
Baw worked a shite load of overtime last week. Baw made 3,700 before taxes. Baw begins to wonder how much he will make in a year. Baw rounds that 3,700 up to 4,000 and multiplies that by 52 weeks per year. Answer=208,000. Baw figures he'll just make it a nice round number and round that up to 210,000. Now, Baw is still going to kick arse and make 130,000, but w2 or it didn't happen.

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I know "baws" that get standby pay anytime they are not on a job (specific customer wants them on retainer all the time). Standby is 16 hours per day. So a standby week is $3,000 per week ($30 an hour with a 5 day week) with overtime. Days offshore are 21 hours a day. I'll count those weeks as a full 7 days and that comes out to $6,015 per week. If they work offshore half the year, that comes out to $234k+ (6015*26 + 3000*26). A lot of those guys make over $30 an hour. A lot work more than half the year offshore, get weekend pay when on standby, etc.. The top end guys can clear 300k and very few if any have college degrees. But they are expected to work constantly.

Most that make it to this level are damned good workers though and not typical oilfield trash. Only time they've spoken money with me is to convince some of us to go into the field and they don't say their income, just use hours to justify. I know what they make hourly at a start, so it's easy to calculate. There is money there if you want it. I'm sure some of it's fake, but a lot of it is real. It's volatile even if you don't get laid off because standby pay dries up quickly when there's no work and jobs can disappear. But the money is real and I know of plenty who kept making it through the downturn since they were the best.

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they get ahead fast.. but check on them again 10 years later..
you need to think long term.. its a marathon.. they are sprinting.. but dont realize how long the race is.. get your education.. you will start off behind.. and you will behind for several years... but then you will eventually pass them up..

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My buddy was about to retire and Dow set him up with a gig making almost 250k a year. He only has to leave the house 2 days a week if he wants. Can work from home.

He goes in four hours a day four days a week.

As he puts it, at this point there is no point to retire.

The other day I walk in and he's making a fishing lure in between pubg matches and monitoring his laptop for work. Not bad for a 57 year old man who wanted to retire 5 years ago

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at this point there is no point to retire.

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I'm at that point right now, working fewer days than ever, and have been able to pick those days for a long time, the money is great, but if I had an extremely high workload, and time away from home, more missed family events, like what is described in a typical baw work schedule, I'd walk

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It's not hard to make 150k a year if you work 100 hours a week.

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At Shell, XOM etc an operator need only work one extra shift per week to pull 150k. Their OT rates are up to 2.5X their regular pay.