08/21/2026
If you are thinking about leaving a stable career to get into oil and gas, or you are already in the industry wondering whether taking a step backwards might actually move your career forward, this part of my story is probably the most important one yet.
This is part 4 in how I got my start in oil and gas, that eventually took me on to amazing international opportunites. In part 1 I talked about getting laid off after 911 from my job in aviation. Part 2 was about my first day in on the rig. Part 3 was about how the money influenced me.
If you haven’t watched those, make sure you go check them out after you’ve finished this video, and be sure to like and subscribe before you go.
With that, lets get back to it.
After my first winter, I left the oilfield and went back to aviation because I thought being an aircraft mechanic was my “real career.”
Within a few months, I realized I had made a mistake.
When spring breakup arrived after my first winter on the rigs, drilling activity slowed down.
I had made more money in a few months than I was used to seeing in an entire year.
But I still didn't think of myself as an oilfield worker.
I had trained to become an aircraft mechanic.
I liked aviation.
I respected the work.
And when I got the opportunity to go back to my old job, I took it.
At first, I thought I was getting my life back on track.
Then I started noticing things I hadn't really noticed before.
By the end of summer, I was broke again.
I was living on apprentice aircraft mechanic wages, while the bills I had accumulated during the spring kept coming.
And I started looking around the hangar differently.
These were incredibly skilled people.
Licensed aircraft mechanics responsible for machines worth millions of dollars and for keeping thousands of passengers safe.
But many of them were struggling financially.
I remember looking at the parking lot.
Rusty Hondas.
Old cars.
People talking about second mortgages.
And then one of the mechanics retired.
He had spent his career in aviation.
There was a retirement gathering at the hangar.
They gave him a watch which I thought was very stereotypical.
Everyone shook his hand, wished him well, and that was it.
And I remember standing there thinking, this is kind of pathetic.
Not the man.
Not the career.
The economics of what I was looking at.
These were highly trained, highly intelligent people carrying enormous responsibility, and many of them were still financially struggling after decades in the profession. As licensed mechanics, they were not earning much more than I was. And many of them commented that they NEEDED to have overtime in order to pay their bills.
That realization changed something in me.
I realized that if I was going to trade my time for money, then I had better be paid as much as possible for that time.
Because you don't get the time back.
I had a decision to make.
Continue pursuing the career I had trained for because it felt safer and more respectable to me.
Or go back to an industry I had already quit once, start at the bottom again, and work toward those Toolpusher and Company Man jobs I had seen earning a thousand dollars a day.
It was a tough fork in the road.
I had invested 4 years of my time, and thousands of dollars for tuition to become an aircraft mechanic. my parents had put their hard earned money towards my education. I had not yet gotten my license. To give that up for something that I didn’t know for sure would work felt risky, and it took some serious thought, weighing the pros and cons of whichever direction I took, and coming to terms with all the doubts that went with this decision.
I chose oil and gas.
Once I had made that decision, I felt a wave of excitement and relief come over me.
I remember rolling my toolbox out of the hangar, elated.
People were looking at me asking, where are you going?
I told them. I quit, I'm leaving.
I wish you all the best, but this isn't for me.
It was one of the best decisions I ever made.
I managed to get back onto the same drilling rig I had worked on the previous winter.
Same Toolpusher.
Different crew.
But I had lost the toolpushers trust because I had quit the first time around.
The Toolpusher put me back at the bottom as a Leasehand and kept me there for about a year.
This time I didn't care.
The first time I entered the oilfield, I was desperate.
I had lost my job and needed money.
The second time, I was there because I chose to be. That made a huge difference.
And something else was different.
My new Driller, Shane, actually taught his crew.
The guys enjoyed rigging.
They liked making connections.
They liked tripping pipe, often with my motorhand scotty singing guns and roses or alice n chains.
They took pride in picking up a BHA properly, without all the screaming and yelling my previous driller did.
The job was still hard.
But I realized the mindset had made it miserable.
That was a huge lesson for me.
Sometimes you don't hate the career.
You hate the environment you are experiencing it in.
And sometimes the decision that looks like going backwards is actually the one that changes the direction of your entire life.
Twenty five years later, oil and gas has taken me around the world.
Eleven countries.
Land and offshore.
Drilling, completions and workover.
I have worked my way up to Rig Manager for international drilling contractors in charge of multiple rigs, and was then promoted to a role, where all the other rig managers reported to me meaning I was responsible for 8 drilling rigs and one workover rig.
And I have worked for some of the worlds best Operators as a Wellsite Supervisor for both onshore and offshore operations.
An international career that I couldn't have imagined when I was rolling that toolbox out of the aircraft hangar.
Careers like mine usually aren't built according to some brilliant twenty year plan.
You stumble into opportunities.
You screw some of them up.
You learn.
You make another decision.
And eventually those decisions become your career.
And you can still build something extraordinary from it.
If you are trying to get into oil and gas, change careers, or figure out how to eventually work internationally, tell me where you are right now and what you are trying to figure out.
And if you want to talk through your own career situation directly, lets connect and see how I can help you.
For the experienced people watching this, I am looking for professionals who have built careers like this and have something useful to pass on.
Rig Managers, Toolpushers, Company Men, Wellsite Supervisors, Drilling Engineers, Completion Engineers, Wellsite Geologists, Operations Managers, Country Managers, and other experienced upstream professionals from Operators, to Drilling Contractors and All the essential Service Companies that support the upstream industry.
Whether you are still working, consulting or retired, if you have actually lived this industry and want to share what you learned on the Practical Energy Insights podcast, send me a message.
Somebody starting today might need to hear your story just as much as I needed to hear one when I was starting.
Before I start talking about my first international assignment, I want to go back and focus on my very first winter in the industry. Some important events happened for me that still sit with me today, including a fatality.
I will go over that in my next video, so make sure you like and subscribe, and get into the comments to let me know how the practical energy insights talent community can help you.
My name is Jonathan Pillet, this is Practical Energy Insights.
As always, thanks for watching.
