I think I've used all possible iterations of "rock" in a title already
So, anyway, It's been a good couple of days. Drove to Durant and back Thursday and Friday. Three hours one way. But then Friday I got my first paycheck, which was totally awesome. Three months with no money really wears on a guy, you know?
The driving. God there's a lot of driving. Long stretches of road, hot, way way too hot with my broken air conditioner. My watch thermometer said 110 at one point when I was stuck in traffic on Friday. Is it any wonder people get road rage and hate to drive? I still enjoy it in the morning though. Get up, pack my work-things, go to it. Drinking coffee on the highway, I listen to music and think.
What I think is, I'm a vulture. I go around getting photos of all this title research so somebody can buy property, whether it's oil and mineral rights or the surface or whatever. They have to find it though, and get exact legal standings of every little piece. So that's where I come in and photo all the title documents, send them to someone who knows how to decipher what they mean and send that information onto someone else, who then buys or leases rights, and maybe they're extracting something and maybe not.
So I'm a little conflicted. I was hanging out with these hippie anarchists (their pamphlets and zines were indicative of this if not the blond dreadlocks many of them sported), and it got me to thinking: What is this concept of big oil, and who decided it was necessarily evil? And am I complicit in working for these people, even at the bottom of a very large hierarchy?
Here's what I think: My job would get done anyway. Market forces right now are making oil so valuable that any hole with the least drop of it at the bottom is valuable. I'm not at the top making decisions, and I can't have any effect on the bad things that happen in other countries because of oil. Here in the US at least, there are good laws on the books (and contractual obligations to the surface-rights holders) to maintain the land on the surface. I'm a contract worker for a company that itself has contracts with the people actually digging. I could take any shit job and maybe cover my expenses, but with this job I can cover my expenses, keep my sanity, and be done with my debt much sooner. So it's ok. I think. OK, readers, all five of you: am I selling out?
Now I have to go mow grass. More about the rocking weekend later.
The driving. God there's a lot of driving. Long stretches of road, hot, way way too hot with my broken air conditioner. My watch thermometer said 110 at one point when I was stuck in traffic on Friday. Is it any wonder people get road rage and hate to drive? I still enjoy it in the morning though. Get up, pack my work-things, go to it. Drinking coffee on the highway, I listen to music and think.
What I think is, I'm a vulture. I go around getting photos of all this title research so somebody can buy property, whether it's oil and mineral rights or the surface or whatever. They have to find it though, and get exact legal standings of every little piece. So that's where I come in and photo all the title documents, send them to someone who knows how to decipher what they mean and send that information onto someone else, who then buys or leases rights, and maybe they're extracting something and maybe not.
So I'm a little conflicted. I was hanging out with these hippie anarchists (their pamphlets and zines were indicative of this if not the blond dreadlocks many of them sported), and it got me to thinking: What is this concept of big oil, and who decided it was necessarily evil? And am I complicit in working for these people, even at the bottom of a very large hierarchy?
Here's what I think: My job would get done anyway. Market forces right now are making oil so valuable that any hole with the least drop of it at the bottom is valuable. I'm not at the top making decisions, and I can't have any effect on the bad things that happen in other countries because of oil. Here in the US at least, there are good laws on the books (and contractual obligations to the surface-rights holders) to maintain the land on the surface. I'm a contract worker for a company that itself has contracts with the people actually digging. I could take any shit job and maybe cover my expenses, but with this job I can cover my expenses, keep my sanity, and be done with my debt much sooner. So it's ok. I think. OK, readers, all five of you: am I selling out?
Now I have to go mow grass. More about the rocking weekend later.
posted by matt at
10:27 AM
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