Werner Enterprises, Inc. - Omaha, Ne.

Mike D,

Just hit regions where there are oilfield jobs, which is literally all over the USA. Some of the bobtail or 60/80 barrel straight truck transport guys make better money than I do.

A lot of the jobs will be on old oil wells, from the 1930's until now, but doing the exact same thing I do, except I happen to be running brand new production wells with 130 barrel trailers.

Look around local to you for anything saying "oilfield services", or something similar. It is worth a shot, trust me. They have rig-up/rig-down crews, workover rigs amongst other things for drivers. It IS a job of who you know, but you have to try first to get a job in it. Above all, it is a "30 day job", everyone knows that if the price of natural gas or oil nosedives, these companies won't be gone next week, they will leave TONIGHT. That's the job though.

The oil rigs here will slowly but surely walk north and east into Arkansas soon, as they are experiencing the same boom as us. At the moment, they are predicting another 1300 oil wells where I live, with an estimated 20 years of work (not drilling, but production, which these wells will produce for the next 20-30 years, and have to have someone pull off them).

Estes Transport is hiring here in Southern OK for daycab doubles at $19.50 an hour. Not my cup of tea at all, but Sandford Oil is hiring as well down here, in fact, most everyone is. Texas Transco (my company), Mikes Tank Truck, Brigette, Hulls, Saber, Nabors, Big Mac, A&A, all of them are hiring.

This isn't OTR that I do, you get nasty muddy, and if you want to gripe about backing up, do it around an oil rig or vehicles packed into a location big enough to not do crap. Watch out for that pipe rack, and darn, did I just run over that 4" hose? Time to get the sledgehammer and beat her out.......kidding! It is like OTR when you have to sit and wait for another Frac job to kick off, or wait until it rains to pull pit water, but that is life, I still get paid to show up and sit around. For now we haven't hit any slowdowns, but it always happens. It will last a week, at most two, and then another well will kick off, back to work!

I don't do parking lots, I do dirt roads with one lane bridges, in mud knee deep sometimes. I have to constantly run 100k weight across 20 ton bridges, not to mention low water crossings.....

Yesterday, because of all this rain, I backed up 3/4 of a mile on a county dirt road because it had washed out. Just the way it is, after all, I get paid by the hour.

Last week we had 3 guys bust a rear axle each because of the lease roads they were on. What did they do? They waited until the mechanics came out to fix them, then drove off to keep doing the job. Layover is a joke when I can get paid hourly to sit and sleep waiting on someone else.

There are also non-driving jobs, like being a Flowback Hand, you are on-call 24/7, checking the water pressure and flow rate on a frac job. Take a guess how much they make! How about $400-$800 a DAY. But, you have to check that well EVERY HOUR. You live in a trailer day/night, and keep up with the well no matter what, whether you are sleepy or not. Oilfield does NOT stop, ever. Rigs do NOT stop drilling unless they are forced to, and production wells do NOT stop because it is sunday and Nascar is on.

Welders make roughly $50 an hour, sometimes more, Pumpers make (I heard tell) $1500 a day, but have to keep up with (down here) 100+ wells a day.

For the rest of you, good luck, I hope it works out for you. I just wished I hadn't wasted time with Werner at all, as I am much better off right now anyway.

 

Ozark,
Thanks for the info. I've worked in the Oil Patch before a long time ago before CDL's were required. Right now I'm going to CDL school so they can tell me once again that I know how to drive a tractor trailer.

I don't know about these schools and some companies. Driving tractor trailer is like riding a bicycle. Once you know how you don't really forget unless you suffer major head trauma.

I gave your company a call. Yeah, they're hiring. Good. Good deal. I've been poor for too long with my family and I can't forget the memory of when I worked the Valdiez spill in Alaska looking down at my pay stub and saying "####, I cleared $2800 this week. I need to do that for a year or two now.

As I seem to remember the booms go in two or three year cycles and you're saying this one just started. It seems like get in now and hang on and ride the roller coaster. Well, I leave on Monday for Tucson to go to CDL school. And we are so poor I am going to have to hop a freight train to get there. So, the tantilization of clearing $11-1400 a week totally legally is exactly what I want to do. I was thinking about going over the road until I heard about this, but now it seems to be the way to go. We're outside of Stover MO and I've got an RV. My wife will be happy. "Here's some money. I ain't coming home for a few weeks. Because I love you but I really love these paychecks too."

Oh yeah, your company said they had 4 locations, but no website. And I guess I could park my RV at one of their yards. Noise doesn't bother me. I used to be in the Army. IF you can sleep in a duce and a half when it's running you can sleep anywhere. That's the one great skill I learned in the Army, sleep standing up.

Mike D.

 

Hey ozark sending a pm on these oil field jobs.
I just got my cdl, and was about to sign with werner. when i came across this forum.
need to talk more to ya about it.


dale in OKC

 

cant pm you yet, not enough post to make a pm

 

You can pm it to MACK E-6, burky, cybergal or any other moderator that I did not list. They are the only exemption to the pm rules but make sure you include who you want it to go to they will forward it for you.

 

Well i hate to say, but I'm going to work for Werner. I leave on Sunday for Dallas for orientation.
It seems that most of the complaints is from OTR 48 starters. and from people that didn't stick around past 3 months.
I will keep a open mind and make my own judgment on the company. I will take with me mental notes about all the complaints and bad habits that the company has. I will try to stick it out for at least 6 months, if all else i am going to be in contact with the local teamsters union. Like they say there is always oil fields jobs here.
I will be doing a dedicated runs, don't think i will want to do the dollar general runs though. i might even try there home every night runs.

I'm not trying to get rich, I'm broke, so any pay will do. I just want to drive.

 

Good luck. There's no guarantee it'll work out, but no guarantee that it won't, either. Sounds like you'll be fine no matter what.

 

everything usally works out.

If not i will have to pull a blue mule on them.