For the past few months, as many of you know, Doug has been on the job hunt. After 2 ½ years in a Master’s program, he launched into the rollercoaster ride of finding gainful employment “out there” – outside the known world of universityland. There were ups and there were downs. On the one hand he was flown exotic places for interviews (Rossland, BC! Texas! Edmonton!) and taken out for fancy dinners. On the other, there were rude interviewers and weeks spent waiting for the phone to ring or an email message to appear in his inbox.
All that is over! For better or worse, Doug and I have accepted a job offer from Schlumberger (the huge multi-national oil services company I mentioned in the last email). They have approximately 80,000 employees in 80 countries and an annual operating budget of over $20 billion. Doug jumped through all manner of hoops during the 3-month recruiting process. In the end, he was offered an elite position in the company’s Tech & Field program.
This means that Doug and I, for the next 19 months, will be living in Rock Springs, Wyoming where Doug will work as a field engineer! He will divide his time between on-site work at oil rigs and in the local office. As he’s been telling everyone, he’s most excited about wearing a hard hat, steel-toed boots, and blue coveralls. Oh, and driving the big truck 🙂 During those 19 months, he’ll also be periodically going to a training centre for courses – at one point, for about 1-2 months. (I figure that’s when I’ll finish my novel!) After the field portion of the program is done, he’ll apply his experience to developing better technologies in the Edmonton research office.
At this point, we have very little information about where we’ll live and how we’ll move down there. I have – as you can imagine – done a ton of research on Rock Springs. As one of my friends who grew up in the region told me: “It’s not the prettiest or hippest part of Wyoming, but it’s not that bad if you like hanging out with cowboys!” Not the most encouraging start, but after checking out the web and emailing with some locals, I’ve found there’s a nice community of historians and writers I’ll try and join. We’ll also be within striking distance of Salt Lake City (Utah) as well as Denver and Boulder (Colorado). Not to mention all the national parks in the area. At the very least, we’ll have some open spaces and fresh air after living in downtown Toronto this summer!
