And Then, A grilling...

I was preparing a toasted sandwich and for some reason it triggered a distant memory in that murky mess that passes as my mind which caused it to take a hop, skip and a jump - Okay, a trip, stumble and flounder, back to the early eighties.

Rig Managers eat, drink and sleep their job. These are the shore-side bosses. They are the last line in problem solving, sourcing equipment and other resources. Back in the day, a typical posting would be for two years then, dependent on their showing, they would be moved up or ever onwards to another rig. Familiarity breeds and all that stuff.

The manager of the rig I was on in the North Sea got moved on right sudden like  and a new boss duly rolled up. A nice guy who went on to far greater things.

On a rig visit he told me a little story relating to his previous posting taking care of a rig in the Gulf of Mexico.

Now managers are working twenty four hours of every day and eating is done on the run, at their desks or wining and dining the client, prospective clients or visa-versa. However, when he first hit this new posting and after many meetings, he finally found his company apartment and, feeling beat, got himself a pizza, threw it under the grill and took a shower. After the shower, feeling all ship-shape and Bristol fashion, he demolished his pizza, phoned the rig and then hit the hay. That was the last food in the apartment.

A little over a year later he got the word to pack, get to the airport, no hand-over and head for the UK. He frantically packed, located his passport and had a quick run round to check the apartment was as he found it.

And that, he told me, was when he remembered to turn the grill off...

These are incredibly cleaver, thinking on their feet and outside the box sort o’ folk and it was nice to learn that even they can, on occasion, be tripped up by the trivial.

And Rig Managers reading this? Check your grill.

That was a long journey for a toasted sandwich.

Quote;  Rita Rudner.

“I read recipes the same way I read science fiction. I get to the end and say to myself "well, that's not going to happen.”