[GP_Matt]

I have been getting a few PM's lately asking questions about jobs in the 'Patch' and thought a thread might help to answer some questions and dispell a few myths.

I live and work in Grande Prairie which is an oil town although not in the same way as Ft Mac. GP doesn't have the huge work camps and gigantic sites but rather a huge number of smaller sites.

I figure between myself and a few other posters we should be able to answer quite a few questions about the work and life.

The first question that I usually hear is, "Is it true that you can just show up and earn $100000 a year with no skills?"
I think it is pretty rare to walk into a job with no training or skill and earn that much, but there is a ton of room for advancement. Starting wage for laborers around here is $18-20/hour but there is usually a ton of overtime. Our employees usually get 60 hours a week so the overtime means 70 hours or $1400 a week. With surveying it is possible to climb above 100k in three years or so if you are smart and hard working but you do work for that money. 60 hours a week average means that sometimes you will need to work 21 12 hour days in a row possibly out of town in a hotel or camp.

There are a ton of jobs available for skilled and experienced workers and quite a few for green guys as well. If you want to find work with no training there are a few things that can put you ahead of the others and also set you up for a higher starting wage.

Have a clean drivers abstract. This doesn't have to be spotless but more than a few speeding tickets, one big speeding ticket or other serious tickets will place you at the bottom of the list or even bar you from employment at a lot of the companies. A DUI on your record will mean that most companies won't pay the rate increase that will come with hiring you.

Be able to pass a drug/alcohol test. A lot of companies have either pre-employment or site access drug and alcohol testing. If you can't pass you can't go to work. The jobs are almost all safety sensitive so a clean system is required.

Try to obtain your safety tickets before applying. Most employees require several tickets before they can start work and employers usually prefer an employee who can start right away. Some companies will pay for your tickets if they hire you but they will also pay you more if you already have them. They are also more likely to take a chance on an employee that can start right away rather than one who needs a week of safety courses before they can start learning how to do the job.
H2S Alive - this is a. Course that everyone in the field requires. It is a one day course put on almost daily through ENFORM.
PST - Petroleum Safety Training is a 4 hour computer based course. Watch the videos and answer the questions.
Wildlife Awareness - Another ENFORM course that is required for some industries. I think it takes an hour but haven't taken it myself. It replaces Bear Aware which was an 80's video that was entertaining.
TDG - Transportation of Dangerous Goods is required if you will be driving equipment (almost everything is dangerous)
First Aid - I don't know how many jobs require this but we do. We need the employees to take the Level C with CPR and the BC equivalent from ST Johns. It is a two day course and offered everywhere.
There are a few more courses that are job specific and it may be worth looking into them before applying.

Not all of the jobs are working on the rigs. Seismic and surveying go in first before anything is built. They use quads, sleds and helicopters to get around and are often in virgin areas. After that comes construction to build the leases and roads, then drilling, completions and facility work before the pipeline construction starts. After that there are still a ton of jobs for operations and maintainence and then environmental and clean-up work when the site is put back to bed.

That is everything that I can think of at the moment.