What jobs are the most fun?

Been pretty lucky in my career. Worked up from AB on MODU’s and have made my way up to OIM while salaries skyrocketed and have managed to hold on as layoffs took many of my colleagues. Not complaining one bit but the oil patch is a different place than it once was and all the fun has been replaced by corporate BS.

I have enough cash to retire but am not ready yet so I was thinking about jumping ship to something more fun. What are my options? What jobs out there are still fun? I don’t need to sail as master I could start as 3m until able to prove myself.

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I like your question and am looking forward to the answers. BTW dirt side jobs are also just corporate BS now.

Every offshore job was fun it the Seventies.

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So no one’s having fun out there??

If spending time on 50 meter yachts in the South of France or other places in the Med and South Pacific counts then yeah, I’m having more fun than chasing vacuum leaks on a crude oil tanker.

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You’ll have a hard time finding work anywhere right now, especially at a “fun” place.

Maybe not all were fun but I had a great ride. I started in 1970 at 16. The first company I worked for had vessels in every corner of the industry. Drillships, jackups, seismic, mud boats, deep sub support, salvage, live diving, ect. Never a dull moment. Worked well over half the world before I was 21. When the company sold out in '75, my network and contacts were wide enough that I’ve never been without a job.

Well…some of those jobs you were not called back for NOT drinking…back when going to sea was fun!

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I think about quitting my job more than I think about sex. I think about how I’d quit, what to do after. Is almost erotic.

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Tankers were fun (in a not really sort of way) until the 90s.

When I first started sailing tugs in the 70’s, it was a lot of fun.

Hell, we used to joke the main reason for making the wheels turn was to get to the next port to have a couple of beers. There was more than once that I remember the Captain planning on making sure that we got into Port Jeff Long Island in time for Happy Hour.

A couple of us were sitting around and the topic of drinking in port (or other times) came up. A couple guys worked in the office for years and even they said that they really had to wonder just how safer it is now compared to when guys would go up the street for a couple.

Now, we all know there were some that would push it and get totally wasted but to me these were a small number of the total crews out there. Most guys that I sailed with could go up the street have a couple and come back.

So, this might be a better posted in a separate thread but I have to wonder if there has ever been a study to see if it’s really safer now than before. I doubt it as they will never admit that maybe drinking and drugs did not cause that many incidents.

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The most fun I ever had while getting paid was running live-aboard dive boats in the Bahamas, living in swim trunks, meeting plenty of single women in wet bikinis with Jimmy Buffet playing on the jukebox. There were no rules against partying with the customers.
It was labor intensive however: 2 dozen divers, 3 day dives, 1 night dive, which meant changing location 4 times every 24 hours, 6 days in a row with day 7 for turnaround, 3 weeks on, 1 off. Very little time for sleep.
I was over 30 and the oldest on the boat but still a hound dog so it was tough to keep the pace. I’d spend the first half of my off week on the couch recovering and I burned out in less than a year.

Commercial fishing was fun in the eighties. Go where I want catch what I want and get lots of cash money on the side. I ranged anywhere from Hateras Canyon to the Tail of the Grand Banks.

Never thought I would hear a man say that.

I think DeckApe’s words might make a great t-shirt.
“I think about quitting my job more than I think about sex. I think about how I’d quit, what to do after. Is almost erotic.”

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Cleaning the shit tank after chili day?

Three words:

American Hawaii Cruises

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AW PHUCK IT! figure I’d better expunge that post before it gets deleted for me

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Non-Gulf specific Research Boats my man.

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I like ROV, Construction, and Anchor Jobs. Straight supply running, boring as hell, but it pays the bills.

The most fun I had was running production on a utility boat where you just stayed in one field, worked sun up to sundown bumping platforms transferring men and cargo, and you would sit on a buoy all night. Just the wheel and 2 throttles. Sadly it doesn’t pay the bills anymore, and I REALLY like having a chief engineer taking care of everything in the basement.

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Spent almost four months at Piney Point as a trainee. Then they put seven of us on a plane and sent us to Honolulu. I hated leaving the Indy behind but the pay was horrible. I got my 180 days as a wiper and fled the scene of the crime. Seeing her like this is heartbreaking…

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