New safety policy rubber stamped, costs millions

HORN RIVER, British Columbia – Anti-Collision.  In every way, shape, or form, it sounds like a great policy.  That is what Precise Drillworx thought when it had planned to implement it over 2 years ago.

The initial run at the policy was made by a number of crews working in the Horn River Basin of North Eastern British Columbia. Management at the drilling major took a cursory glance over the paperwork and rubber-stamped it with a mandate to implement it as soon as possible.

But after nearly 18 months and a financial look back, a large number lost clients, and embarrassingly slow drilling times, the true nature of the policy reared its head in an ugly news story by CRC Television in Prince George. Dirk Traask, the company’s newly appointed safety manager, went on the record to say:

We had every good intention, and it was a well designed policy.  We don’t want to collide with anything on a job.  Other wells, vehicles during a move, animals on the road, nothing.  What we didn’t understand and apparently missed completely , was that this was a farce by 3 drilling crews in a remote region of operations.  A joke.  A hoax.  And the people who let it slip through have been fired.

The new policy it seems, required crews operating north of a certain latitude to lower the derrick as quarter, half, or full moons passed by to avoid colliding with the story-time celestial body.  Please re-read that last sentence – lower the derrick to avoid the colliding with the moon.  This was a Precise Drillworx operating policy for 18 months, which nearly bankrupted the multi-billion dollar service company.

 

We never thought they’d take us seriously!  With a new damn safety policy about hugs and kisses and massages and ‘take a buddy to take a piss’, we were just having a laugh.

When we saw the official policy, we knew either someone in the office was laxy or retarded, turns out both. – Anonymous PD employee Ritch Nomore

Further interviews with other members of 2 of those crews (now unemployed) are insistent that it was a joke, and there is so much stupid policy in the workplace that it gets to be crying wolf.

Serious and important policies get whitewashed out here in the field cause some porker in an Italian leather chair gets a safety idea watching his step kids assembling Ikea furniture on shrooms.  And we pay for it! – Heath Smoonjok, recent PD driller.

Any argument against a safety policy was usually met with severe reprimand or even dismissal. Precise Drillworx has revoked the safety policy and is now reviewing more ways to make its operations safer.