trainee wars , episode 1 : pre school period

Readers,

Lets introduce a part of humour in this blog (see post title). Well, its just an attempt.

In my previous post , I promised to sum up the three periods during the trainee life of a schlumberger D&M field engineer.Now , I am sitting in the base just waiting for moving to the rig very soon ( I hope). it gives me enough spare time ( too much actually).

Lets make it now!

First of all, this description is only available for the D&M field engineer. If you will work in another segment ( wireline, testing, etc...) it will not reflect what you will do specifically. however, it can give you an idea as there are general lines which are likely the same for all the trainees in all the segments.

Generally, you have to start with the famous OFS1.It stands for OilField Seminar 1. I can not tell a lot about this one as I unfortunately did not do it ( see previous post ).According to all my friends, it is a very good experience. The aim of this course is to give you an insight of what we do on the field. The instructor will show you a lot of presentations and try to interact with you.You will quickly feel bored by the contents of the materials. I know you should wonder where is the fun here?In fact for OFS1, you will be sent in a very nice place ( kuala lumpur, paris, bombay, moscow, ..), you will be in a very nice hotel and everything will be paid for you. They will even give you some money for you to go out by night and have a nice dinner in a restaurant or whatever you want. You will be with 15 others new trainee, most likely from all other the world.You will also receive a bunch of items "made in " schlumberger like laptop, back pack, luggage bag.You will get a full set of PPE as well. PPE stands for Personnal protective equipment.
Everyone is unanimous, OFS1 is one of the best time during the trainee period.
During the last day, you will receive your assignement letter which will tell you where you will spend the next year(S) in term of location and business segment.For most of the people, they already know these informations , but for some of them, it was a surprise. You can potentially be affected everywhere in the world.

Straight from OFS1, you will fly, with the eyes still full of stars and very cheered to your new location.

Now :it is starting.

The contrast can be brutal. you will do the transition from a 4 stars hotel in Kuala lumpur to a base in the middle of nowhere. Everyone is wearing the PPE, the accomodation is not really nice.its hot/cold, noisy, full of people moving like ants and no one will pay attention to you.Once you will realize this, you will have to meet your manager. Basically every trainee are managed by the SQC. this guy is maybe the busiest people in the company. He has to quality check every data which goes to the client, implement new procedure in the location, check latest technical alert... and secondarily be in charge of you.Well to be honest, dont expect to spend a lot of time with him if your location is really busy.He will try to explain you all the things you have to do for the first couple of days but it will be too much informations for you.hopefully there are always more experienced engineers around and they will guide you and help you to find out the tasks you have to do. after one week of administrative tasks, you will start to go inside the more technical things.One more time the contrast will be brutal. If you believe that you have finished with studying right after your diploma, I am sorry to tell you that you are wrong.you will have to study (too) many things. there is no possibility to skip it as it will serve you for your future position and also has to validated in online test system.Luckily, you will have a mentor, who is a guy with more experience than you. He will help you.


The average of preschool period is 3-4 months. During this time you will spend most of the time in front of the computer. If you are lucky that your location is busy , you will have chance to go to the rig. It is actually nice as you will be there only as an "extra hand". So no pressure for you, no time constraint. Just browsing the rig to get familiar with all the components and all the people.
At the end of the preschool period, you have to pass an online test. the pass mark is 75 % and there is around 90 questions.If you fail it two times, you are out of the company. It is really severe but fair. It is really simple questions, if you have been through all the materials they gave you before. If you fail two times, they judge that you can not attend the first school and then can not perform the job.

If you pass it, you will just have to wait for few days before going to the engineer 1 school.

R

PS: During this time, you will really feel that you are totally useless for the company and you are paid for nothing.dont worry, You will slowly feel the opposite.