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gamsbo · 4 years

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I ended up in a gang trunk with five men in Goldsmith, Texas as the first woman and, at that point in time, the only woman in the field for a major oil company. My son read a story I had written ( I am woman Hear Me Roar ) and said, “you should have written more and made it more like a story.” Well, I am not a writer, but he is right. Sadly, I do not know how to write that way.

Remembering the Oilfield – or The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

The good: I have to laugh because I cannot remember that much good. I remember some “okay.” I did not make any lifelong friendships. I remember faces, not names. The only good is I made a very good living and as a single mom (after 2 years in the field) that was very important. So I will tell you a few stories. Mainly they fall in the category of bad and ugly.

On the first day, there were three of us about the same age: a black man, a Hispanic man, and a white woman – quite a motley crew. I think we all went in with the feeling that this was a job, and once we got the hang of it everything would be all right. Boy were we wrong! For the men it was not so bad, but for the white woman it was different.

So let me tell you about a few of the accidents and some of the unkind behavior I was met with. I want to tell you, the oilfield was neither the safest place in the world to work, nor was it the friendliest. That is not to say working in an office is always safe or friendly.

My first introduction into the oilfield was that of a “roustabout.” It just means that you are going to ride around in a big truck with about six other people and you fix whatever needs fixing. I did this for six months.

I really lucked out that the gang pusher (boss) was the most unsafe person I had ever met in my life. We would drive up to a pump jack to fix whatever needed to be fixed (pump jacks have counter weights. If you are hit by one you are dead). It was his job to turn the pump jack off. Well, he did not always do his job. About the time you were ready to work, you would hear “click” and you knew it was coming on. You had one option: hit the dirt and roll. I did that a few times. In fact, in a safety meeting we were asked if there was anything the company could do to make things safer and we all pointed to him.

So here goes a few more stories of the good, the bad and the ugly.

The gang truck as a rule has five people (at least the one I worked in did), the driver, the pusher and three others all called “roustabouts.” As I was thinking about writing about the gang truck something funny came back: the smell inside the truck. I can tell you without a doubt it could have used extra-strength air refresher, and I am not sure that would have helped. I had very little trouble with the men in the truck, except one and some of the things he did to me border on just downright meanness.

There were three in the truck that had started with me. When I think of my days in the gang truck, three things come to mind. First, in West Texas it gets really hot in the summer time, the rattlesnakes come out, and we killed quite a few. One day we killed one and one of the men thought it would be funny to scare me with it. He knew that I had a book that I would work in as we went from job to job (I was taking API courses) and would lay it on the seat when we got out of the truck, so he took the dead snake, put it under the book knowing that when I got back in the truck I would reach for the book and come up with a hand full of rattlesnake. I did and it scared me so badly that I went over the front seat, knocked the pusher out of the truck, and the snake landed on him.

Second, we were working on a tank and the same man felt it would be neat to throw the hatch open as I stood over it. I was hit with H2S (Hydrogen sulfide – it kills – look up “Andrew, Texas and H2S” in the late 70s or early 80s. It killed a family of 13 from a leak of a wellhead near their home). I do not remember two hours of my life. I am told they just sat me to the side. All I know is I had headache for about two days, but he was not through with me.

Third, he was acting pusher and we had to clean up after an oil leak. This involved a lot of digging and shoveling. I ended up with a blister that covered the palm of my hand. He thought it was funny even when I asked if I could stop digging. This is not the only things he said or did to me but I remember these because I did not understand why a person would treat another person they way he was treating me.

I said that I lucked out and got the most unsafe gang pusher in the world. Well, I can tell the weather by the pain from my neck to my big toe. He did not cause all of it . He was okay, but he was just waiting for retirement.

I said my big toe and shoulder hurt. This is because of the gang pusher (boss). First the big toe: it was just he and I and we had to go level some counter weights. To do that you have this big box of tools and you put it on a big bolt and hit the end of it with a 16-pound sledge hammer. Someone had to make sure that the tool did not come off the bolt as the other person hits the end of the tool (which is about a foot and a half long) so Mr. gang pusher says, “Lynda, put your foot up on the tool so I can hit it and it doesn’t move”. It did not move, because he missed and hit my foot. It bent the steel (I had on steel toed boots) into my big toe. Let your mind go to the word PAIN! I was scared to take my boot off because he was telling me my toe most likely had been cut off and will be in my sock when I take my boot off, because this happened to someone else he knew. The toe was still attached, but that was not the end of him teaching me how to work in the oilfield.

Yep, it was just the two of us again and we had to do some work on a pump jack (not one of the grasshoppers but just regular size). We needed something that would put us about five feet up to do the job. No ladder for him. There were some old boards lying around the site, so we built a scaffold. I kept telling him, “this is not going to hold us,” and he was laughing at me saying, “what’s the matter? You scared?” I was not scared because I thought five was not that far to fall straight down. We were up there doing the work and heard a loud crack. We knew we were going down, but the man who had been making fun of me climbed me like a pole, causing me to come down and hit the side of the pump jack and break my shoulder, but he was okay.

Asst. Water Plant Operator and Plant Operator

I left the gang truck to become assistant Water Plant Operator and later Plant Operator. Things got better in some ways and stayed the same in others. I had two really good bosses. The head supervisor was an old Navy man. If it walked, you saluted it. If it stayed still, you painted it. There are a few things that happened that I would not write about. I worked with Well Service hands – people who did not work for Gulf Oil – they could be, and were very crude. The man I had a problem with did work for Gulf. He was in his 50s, his mouth was unbelievable, and he called me every name in the book. Oh, but then it got funny. A friend invited me to go to church, and when I walked in, there he stood as the greeter. He also was the head Elder. When he saw me, he turned white. I thought he was going to pass out! I walked over and told him it was okay. I was not going to tell the people of the church what type of human being he really was. It was funny: most of the men who were so crude to me in the field were so different if I ran into them with their wives or families. My job at the water floor plant was to maintain six turbojet engines, a thousand HP engine, plus smaller pumps and charts.

There are two memories from the Water Plant that stand out: one I will not write about except to say it was the worst sexual harassment problem I had in the field. The second was a water leak. I stayed at work for four days (got a good paycheck out of it). What made it worse than most leaks is that the welders were fixing the leak in the hole where the water was. We were told to watch a gauge and if it went past 38 PSI, it could kill the welders in the hole. I had a young man working with me and we would take turns watching the gauge. It got to 38 PSI once and we both nearly killed ourselves getting to the pumps that needed to be shut off. It was a strange feeling to know that if you did not do your job you could cause someone’s death. I went home on the fourth day and I can tell you, I was tired, and I sure did not smell good.

You know, I am sitting here thinking of so many of the things that happened: like when I was changing the fuse in the electric box and the door would not stay up, so I let it rest on my head (I had my hard hat and gloves on). When I was putting the new fuse in, I touched the wrong wire and my head hurt for a week. I had a boss who really had a problem with a woman working for him. When I first met him, I knew it was not going to be good, because he said, “lady I did not want you but they said I had to take you.” He gave me every dirty job there was. One of the jobs was repairing and cleaning all the chemical pumps to the point where my hands were burnt. After awhile, I would sit after lunch with my pocket knife and cut the dead skin off.

There are so many things I could tell you about and so many things I will not tell you about. Some were funny: like the time my dad was in a coffee shop (as a rule ,there is one place most oilfield hands go for coffee before going to the field) and he could hear the man sitting behind him talking about the “lady” that was coming to Andrews as a lease operator (by this time I had left Gulf Oil and was now working for ARCO). The man was saying things that no father wants to hear said about his daughter; so my dad picked the man up out of his seat and was letting him have it. About that time the local state trooper walked in and told my dad, “Woody, you can put the man down or you can hit him. If you hit him it will cost you $167.” My dad went home that night and had to explain to my mom why he needed $167.

Lease Operator

As a lease operator I had 186 wells with tank batteries that I had to take care of each day. Most days, nothing special happened. You just did your job, but once in awhile the day was rough. On one of these rough days I had a well that was driving everyone crazy. We were going to need water to float the pump down, so we had a water truck on site at the cost of $50 an hour. We were waiting for the pump and the company kept telling us that it would be ready real soon. My boss told me to stay on top of it. At lunch time, there was still no pump, so the gang pushers said they were going to lunch and that I should also. I called the man one more time and he told me that he would not be there until after lunch, so I went to lunch. As I was eating, I heard a truck radio. It was my boss, and he was not talking very nicely. It seems he had been talking with the pump man and he had told him that I had called and told him not to bring the pump until after lunch, which was a lie. It got really funny. The old man drove up with the pump and as he was rolling down his window he was saying, “oh, Lynda I am sorry, I will tell Mack (my boss) that I lied about you.” I was so angry that I reached inside his half open window and started pulling him out. The gang pusher had to pull me off of him. We floated the pump down and everyone went about their business.

About two weeks later I needed another pump so I called and the old man was working that Sunday. He was scared of me, but he knew he had to bring me the pump so he asked, “is there anyone with you?” I told him, “no, just me.” He did not come by himself. He brought his son-law with him. As a woman you had to fight this type of stuff all the time.

Back to Roustabout in Mississippi

I have spoken about working in Mississippi. When I went to Mississippi, I had to start over. Although I was still working for Gulf (but for personal reasons I had asked for this transfer), I became a roustabout again: back to the gang truck. I remembered how bad it was, but it was not always the men in the field. Sometimes, it was the supervisors.

As it became evident that I could not work for these men, I would ask for a transfer. I would give the paper work to the man who was over me, he would look at me, rip the paper up and throw it into his trash can. This went on for a few months. I called and talked to the EEOC. They told me what I could and could not do. The odds did not seem to be in my favor.

It seemed to me that the best thing for me to do was to see what jobs were out there for me. I was lucky and I found more than one. Shell wanted me to go off shore but for me that was a NO-GO because I would not be allowed to have a lock on my door as I slept. I was offered other jobs, but because I wanted to move back to West Texas, I took the one with ARCO (I have already talked about working for ARCO), and looking back it was not the best choice. I have always had a bit of sadness about leaving Gulf – not leaving Mississippi – but leaving the company.

Production Supervisor

I left ARCO and went to work for Enserch as a Production Supervisor. Things were better there because I was the boss. It did not stop everything, but one of the things that happened, I can laugh at now. We had a well Service Crew and one of my jobs was to sign their time sheets. Day after day I would go into their dog house and on the walls were some of the most vulgar pictures of women I had ever seen. They thought they were being really cute, but they soon learned I was the company woman. I went to a well site one morning and heard, “come sign our paper work.” My answer was, “no.”

They asked me why and I told them when they took the pictures down I would sign their timesheets. They thought I was joking. This went on for a few days. They even went to the supervisor and asked him to sign. He said “no.” They were standing their ground. I knew who owned the company (he was the mayor of Odessa at the time) and knew at some point he was going ask why he was not getting time sheets. One day he came to the site (he knew me from some work I had done on his election). When he was through, there were no pictures on the walls of the dog house, and he had his signed work sheets. Did more pictures go back up? I’m sure they did, but they were very mild.

The other thing I remember on that job is when Halliburton fracked the well, they misread some of the directions. The request was for 20,000 pounds of round sand but they used 40,000 pounds of square sand. For the next few weeks they did everything they could to bring the well back in, but they became the proud parents of a well that only produced sand.

Eastern New Mexico University – Roswell

Around this time I had been offered a teaching position at Eastern New Mexico University Roswell, teaching Petroleum Technology. The money was not as good and I would not have a company car or an expense account. It was something I really had to think about until one day when I went to pick my son up at school. He was walking home. I noticed as I got closer to him that he had blood on his face. Like any mother, that shook me up. I picked him up and asked what had happened. He did not want to tell me. In time he did. It seems he had been defending me and my job in the oilfield. I do not know all that was said, but it did help me make up my mind.

I left working in the oilfield only to find so many of the same problems in the teaching of it! Oh, the joys of being a woman!

When I went to work at the Oilfield Training Center at ENMU-R, I was the first and only woman, but had a good relationship with the men who had been teaching there a few years. As with my first year at Gulf Oil, I became “show and tell.” My boss and the school had me speaking all the local clubs like the Lions Club, Association of Desk and Derrick Clubs, among others. When the women students began to have problems with some of the teachers, my boss put me over the women. They were allowed to come to me with their problems with the teachers. This did not make me popular with my peers.

I started “Women of the Oilfield Training Center.” I would bring speakers in from different companies. It’s funny. One day, I looked up, and there were two guys at the meeting. After that it was as many men as women. By doing this, I was able to get job interviews – and yes – jobs for a lot of the students. I did two other things that did not help my relationship with them. In a production class, I put the students in groups and they had to research and build on a board an Oilfield supply yard, pipes, pumpjacks, trucks, tools, and just anything that would be in a supply yard. The project counted as 50% of their grade. What made the men upset is they did not think of it and the project made the front page of the Roswell Newspaper. Working with the students we (me as their leader) arranged a brunch for the editor of a major petroleum magazine. Among those present: a Congressman’s wife, the Lt. Governor of New Mexico, the Mayor of Roswell, and other VIPs from the main campus and around the state. The male teachers not wanting to take part in this kind of took it out on me. It did not help that this also made the paper. I was becoming too successful. I was a threat – just like Gov. Palin is to her supposedly conservative colleagues in the Republican Party.

The bottom line was because I was show and tell, and did things with the students that made the paper…and I think the principal factor: the school was hiring the men I had encountered in the field. They just had different names and wore clean clothes.

KOSA Merit Award, Vocational Education Teacher of the Year.

ENMU-R gives the KOSA Merit award at the end of the spring term just before the summer session commences. The award comes in two versions: Academic and Vocational Education. The teacher’s peers and president of the student body vote on the who should be awarded. I was given the award as the Outstanding Vocational Education teacher. It was the first time that a first year teacher won the award, and the winner also received $500. A plaque listing the names of all the winners hangs in the ENMU-R library, and my name is listed there for the 1981 – 1982 term.

Closing Thoughts

I wrote this to talk about what happened to me, but I will say this:

the men and women who work in the oilfields all over the world so that we can have gas for our cars (this includes the ones working in the plants), heat our homes, and do so many other things that are petroleum based work hard and it is not always safe. I learned that you had to be aware of everything going on around you. Yes there is more, but it is buried too deep after all these years and it is still hard to talk about…

I lived through it and now I just take a lot of Ibuprofen…

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