I recently wanted to leave the 90-on 90-off schedule and get on a drillship so I asked a friend what do i need to do. Here’s the email I got fowarded… I think someone had too much time on their hands [img]http://gcaptain.com/maritime/forum/js/tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/images/smiley-wink.gif" border=“0” alt=“Wink” title=“Wink” />
<strong> So you want to be a drillship captain?</strong>
Buy a dumpster, paint it gray and live in it for 3 weeks straight.
Run all of the piping and wires inside your house on the outside of the walls.
Pump 10 inches of nasty, crappy water into your basement, then pump it out, clean up, and paint the basement “deck gray.”
Have your oldest kid perform a weekly disassembly and inspection of your lawnmower.
Yell at your neighbor if he walks outside without a hardhat and boots.
Have your family eat the raunchiest Mexican food you can find for three days straight, then yell at them for spending too much work time in the bathroom.
Make your family complete an OJT before they operate any appliances in your home (i.e. Dishwasher operator, blender technician, etc.).
Tell your wife that when the car is moving your in charge, while stopped or in park she’s in charge but if it catches on fire while it’s parked your in charge.
Tell your son to empty all the garbage bins in your house, and sweep your driveway 3 times a day, whether they need it or not. Give the task a stupid name like “policing main deck” or “AM trash run”.
Repaint your entire house once a month.
Disconnect all your neighbors’ phones and install a phone booth on the street.
Spend $20,000 on a satellite system for your TV, but only watch Fox News and the Country Music station.
Have the family vote on which tv channels to watch and then pick different ones.
Sew reflective strips to the front of all your shirts.
Expand your vocabulary. For this task watching Larry the Cable Guy is the best way to git 'r done.
Reprogram all your phones so that you have to dial 99 the number and # to call anyone outside your neighborhood. When you do call wait 3 seconds after every question before speaking.
Needle gun the aluminum siding on your house after your neighbors have gone to bed.
At 10:15 Sunday morning when your children are in bed, run into their room with a megaphone, and shout at the top of your lungs “Fire, fire in the galley, FIRE team muster at……”
Buy $50,000 worth of radio equipment “in case” there is an emergency and hire a qualified radio operator to “man the station”…… then make them pay your bills, arrange your travel and answer all your phone calls.
Make your family menu a week ahead of time and do so without checking the pantry and refrigerator.
Paint every room in your house powder blue.
When your daughter asks for an iPod fire up the old commodore 64 computer, make her type out the request, deny it 3 times, then call fedex and tell then to keep it in their warehouse for 3 months after it arrives.
When your kids come home with A’s on their report card buy them a camouflage hat with flames down the side and the family name embroidered across the brim.
Yell at your wife if she cooks anything but fried chicken for lunch on sunday
Call the restaurant five hours before arriving and then tell the cook to start heating up the steaks
Each Christmas when your aunt jane and uncle jim visit make them stay on the porch until they have watched a 2 hour video of yourself pointing out all the fire extinguishers and smoke alarms in your house.
Make your kids pay 50 cents for each soda they drink.
Never call a local repair man when your stove breaks. Instead call someone in the UK and pay for their flight. When they arrive call the taxi company and give them strict orders not to pick the repairman up until the stove is fixed.
Sleep on the shelf in your closet. Replace the closet door with a curtain. Have you wife whip open the curtain about 3 hours after you go to sleep. She should then shine a flashlight in your eyes and mumble “Sorry, wrong rack.”
Designate a room in the house as “The Control Room” then make your kids sit their in front of a computer screen for 12 hours. Tell them that if anything turns red they could cause the family millions of dollars.
Tell your neighbor to call you when ever they see a thunderstorm in your area.
Put lube oil in your humidifier and set it on high.
Leave the lawn mower running in your living room eight hours a day.
Every other month buy green or red marine primer and put it in a paint sprayer. Have your 2 year old spray it over the roof of your house onto your neighbor’s car. Ignore his complaints.
Head to the local dive bar and ask the first retired guy you see to sit in your home office scratching his nuts. Make him a plaque reading “company man” and tell him to “remind” you daily about every squeaky floor, dripping faucet, late mail deliveries…. Tell him to invite his friends over and when they show up move your kids into the garage so they have a nice bed to sleep in.
After shopping rent a cherry picker offload the groceries.
Each morning jot down the wind speed/direction, barometer reading and the amount of fluids in your hot water heater, gas tank, lawn mower…. convert the figures you get into whatever unit of measurement you did not use and write it down in 6 different places.
Have your kid monitor the police scanner 24 hours a day "just in case there’s an emergency.
Pay the editor of your son’s middle school newspaper an undisclosed amount to deliver his paper by helicopter to you each morning. When he arrives throw some leftovers into a Styrofoam box and offer it to him.
Find a bridge simulator with 360 degree views, enroll in ship handling class then spend 1/2 of your time looking behind you. Spend the other half of the time on the phone explaining why the main deck lights are out, why you don’t know/care what the water depth is and performing unit conversions in response to the question “Can you give me that in something I can use??” ….do this one every hour.
Once a year throw a huge bar-b-q. Buy crawfish, steak and shimp then overcook them and offer your guests only O’Douls and soda pop.
Go to your local elementary school and ask the principal to send you a weekly list of the stupidest things the kindergarteners have done that week. Call a meeting with your family every Monday and read the list with a straight face.
Place toohpicks, picante sauce and a can of Tony Chachere’s on your kitchen table.
Call 911 and tell them to send a helicopter each time your son falls off his bike.
Eat only at all-you-can-eat buffet restaurants that specialize in fried foods. Bonus points if you have a view of the cooking area from your table and the place primarily employs nose-pickers and butt-scratchers.
Twice a day (or more if possible) get everyone together in as small a room as possible (a closet or bathroom should do) and have a meeting to listen to someone tell you what you did all day. Bonus points for reiterating statements multiple times (i.e. “Like Joe says safety is…”).
