I'm a sporadic Twitterer, I've also mentioned before that I've managed to get my tweets to show up as mood messages on my wall in facebook, which is nice because it creates the illusion that I'm actually paying attention to my facebook page which is fiction. I've also mentioned several times before that I'm an oilfield medic up here in Canada which I've been doing for several years.
These days I'm working on a long term fairly high profile job for bp, the guys have been great but because the job is so high-profile there's a lot more safety oversight than is even typical for normal bp jobs. I've worked for bp almost my entire career as a medic and I can tell you that at it's worst their safety policies are more stringent and better enforced than any other company I've ever worked for, but this is a new level even for bp.
One of the things I encountered early on into this job is that a very nice safety inspector with the prime contractor came along and looked through my first aid room with a very keen eye. He made a list of things I had to shore up on and told me in a few days I would be getting audited to officially see if things were up to snuff. This was new to me, in all my years no one outside my own company has ever looked twice at my equipment or competence, I was actually rather happy that someone knowledgeable would be going through my job, because it meant they cared about what I did and if they found any deficiencies I would learn from the audit and potentially become a better medic, something I don't shy away from.
Well several days passed and the audit never materialized, the inspector came and looked at everyone else except me. So I shrugged and went about my business, I knew I was doing a good job and the safety hand had sent off a report detailing the corrections I'd carried out, so perhaps that was good enough.
Yesterday after the audit was supposed to happen, auditors directly from bp showed up and began doing their thing. My safety hand was working with them but he got a little time away to stop in and give me a heads-up that these auditors were very thorough and that I could expect one as well. This excited me a little, and so I waited for them to come in and say hi…
A few hours passed and the auditors got in their trucks and left. Some might have viewed this as dodging a bullet, but I didn't see it that way, I wanted someone to care enough to check on me and I was disappointed that they didn't. So I twittered the following:
schoonerhelm Auditors are here right now, looks like they're going to overlook me. This is very disappointing.
An hour later I got a message in my inbox notifying me of a wall post from facebook, it was my cousin Ali who's husband works for bp, they currently live in Norway right now, but before they moved there her husband Ken he worked as an engineer on this project. Her message was thus:
Ali (Norway) wrote
at 2:39pm yesterday
Who are you working for? It sounds like you might be working on Ken's old project up there by Aunt Lin's place, Noel was his project. Cheers, Ali.
I replied to her post confirming that her suspicions were indeed correct and thought little of it, until a little over an hour later as I was in here typing away when one of the site supervisors came in and gave me a smack on the shoulder. "That's from Ken B! He said to give you a smack, and says you'll know what it's for!" He says sounding equal parts amused and curious.
I explained that Ken was my cousin-in-law, and what I'd done, and my supervisor's curiosity was sated. "I got the call from Ron H telling me that." He clarifies.
Ron H is the area manager with bp for this area, he's the guy responsible for bp hiring my company here (which probably puts 30 medics in the field here during any given time), and while I've met him a handful of times it's usually been a quick handshake and then moving on to other business, we've never had occasion to converse. But since he worked so closely with Ken the last few years, it turns out they became friends, and while Ken was looking over his wife's shoulder late at night in Norway, he was also MSN'ing Ron H. To him reaching out and giving me a tap on the shoulder from Norway probably gave him a chuckle. Me I'm just in awe of weird interconnectivity, but I'm also a bit worried, because now the field manager of a very large oil company knows who I am and that I'm wanting to be audited.
I'm not sure if there's a moral to this story yet, but if I were a betting man I'd probably put money on: "Be careful what you wish for…"
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