North Dakota & Pennsylvania to Oilfield Trash-"GET OUT!"

Yeah I've been at it 32 years before taking a break.. you really don't want  me to put in my 2 cents. Trust me!

All I know is you work in the oilfield you live from pay check to pay check.....instead of video clips telling what I bought with  my  oilfield job,  they should say  look at my  payment I got working in the oilfield not to mention  what he/she got paid  to say that ..They need to give it at least a year  before  they say anything like trash, oilfield trash....Don't like the price at the country club  don't go there.

All I can say is the oilfield is a dang good living, people shouldn't knock us.

been doing it 32 years yeah  no respect.. ..dont go there best thang..they acting like that you dont know what they doing to your meal before you git it.. oifield trash     you think no..back in the day the did not bring a change  to change into after work. go town nasty ,greasy yeah oilfield trash..

Mitch, what I told you I would do, has been done.  We shall see where it goes.  To all the rest of the respondents to this blog, thanks for the input.  We are not anyone's Trash.  We are families who work hard and deserve respect.  My home is heated with your sweat and hard work, my car runs on American fuel and most of my clients are of the so called "Trash" variety, but they are some of the best in the world.  I raised four kids and without the oilfield it would not have been possible.  We make a great team and work hard.  I am glad to call all of you "friends" even tho most of you I will not ever meet in person.  I know this because in 2003 I lost my son.  He was missing for over 12 hours before he was found.  His crew drove over 60 miles and searched all night for him and they found him at sunrise.  The day of his funeral, the Rig Manager, let all of them come to his service as they were the honorary pallbearers and he stayed with the rig.  People need to learn to respect others regardless of what job description they have.  My suggestion is that owner needs to have a staff education on that subject.  He also needs to know that we are not Oilfield Trash we are OILFIELD PROUD!  Mitch, hang in there and I hope the injured knee gets better soon.  Take care of your wife as she's a special lady.  We shall see what happens in the coming weeks. 

I would like to say as the wife,whose honor was being defended, our rowdy ground consisted of myself Mitchel and a gentleman from a large service company. We arrived early for a business dinner and have never in the 30 plus years in the oil industry been treated in such a manner.
That being said, I've been married to Mitchel for 27 yrs and high school sweethearts of 30  yrs.
We have a wonderful family that have all made livings in the oilfield. We have made friends from all over because of our career in the oil (and gas )industry. I would like people to know that we are business owners and professionals. We value our men and women that we are lucky enough to have as employees. They as well as their families make great sacrifices to work in this industry. Missing milestones in their children's lives and leaving spouses to continue life at home alone! As an oilfield wife this has been my life,it has been my children's life and as much as I hate it,our grand children's lives.

North Dakota has a lot to be proud of,at a time when the united States is facing great financial hardship they have had the ability to feed and house families all over the United States! It is not just the oil industry that has benefited from this oil boom but every other industry in the united States. There are electricians,carpenters, heavy equipment operators, truckers,the list goes on and on. So I hope that we can all except that we all have to exist together and that we all benefit by this oil boom. Thank you to everyone for your support. Proud to be an oil field wife!!!

Hey guys, I have been up here in ND since April, hauling water and now working at the rigs on a cement crew with Baker Hughes. I have lived in both Minot and am currently in Dickinson... And yes, I have been to Williston. Honestly, no one has ever treated me with any disrespect, other than the Indians on the reservation outside of New Town, but I expect that type of behavior from them and they never fail to deliver.

I don't know what happened with Mitch, I was not there and will make no judgement calls in this matter. But, I can say from experience eating out, going into a bar or restaurant being kinda stinky from the field, that I have always been treated with the utmost respect. Even my local golf course, Heart River, here in Dickinson welcomed me with open arms when I first played there.  I spent an hour in the pro shop just talking with the cashier about all that is going on up here in regards to the oil and all of the people flooding the area to make it all happen. Heck, he loved it, more golfers and more money for him and his course! When I hit the course I asked another single player if he would like a partner, again, very warm reception and a very enjoyable round of golf.

My point is this, don't judge ND by this one incident, my experiences here have been nothing like was described here. And I have never heard anyone up here say "oil field trash" to anyone in my presence, not even in a joking manner. As I stated, everyone here that I have met have been very nice, and more than a few have gone out of their way to help me when situations arise. I really like ND and feel very much at home, I just wish I could get the rest of the family up here.  

Well the hate mail keeps coming in here, usually comments about what trash oilfield workers are from out-of-town How all the locals treat the oilfield workers with great respect..etc

Then I did a Google Search for "Williston Oilfield Trash" and started reading and its clear the prejudice that exists. I copied the following from a message board their post by a native North Dakota resident and I think it says it all;

 I love it, jump all over the oilfield "trash" when they do something stupid, yet fail to say a damn word when the "locals" go out and do something stupid,  six months ago at the draft horse bar 8 local Stanley guys all in their mid to late 20's jumped 1 guy inside the drafthorse.....  this guy did not say word to the 8 guys, he was sitting at a table with his friends minding his own and these guys walked up to him and punched him from behind...

broke his jaw and while he was down they all jumped on him and beat the piss out of him.  1 fricken guy versus 8 for no reason other than the 8 thought it would be fun to beat the hell out of him.

  Don't be a f'ing retard and say that "oilfield trash" is whats causing all our problems.  I have lived in North Dakota all my life, I have worked in the oilfield for the last 4 years. I bartend at the drafthorse for shits n giggles.  I'll tell you this much, 98% of the "oilfield trash" that comes in there are upstanding people.  2% of them are fking idiots that give us all a bad name

oh yeah one more thing, when the cops showed up because of the fight... they didn't arrest a single one of the locals.... in fact the locals actually pushed the cops outta their way in the parking lot and then jumped in their rigs and took off.

 Like I have said before-its not EVERYONE in North Dakota-just the bigots

THEN I actually read an article  where a guy trying to survive in his van plugged a space heater in a local city outlet at some "center" he had actually purchased a "Membership" to and the local cops arrested him for it-The court fined him $500 AND sentenced him to 2 days in jail!

So again why are we no longer allowing Man Camp permits?

Wow, I am a born and raised local to Williston ND. I have read much of these kind of stories about "oilfield trash", and the people who start fights. I am not directly involved in the oil here, I simply run my own shop as a auto/truck/heavy truck mechanic, and do auto accessories and the spray in liners, so I am busy due to oil, so I am very thankful for that we have a very good economy to keep myself and my family above water. I am not greedy being just a one man shop, I charge less than what everyone else does, I will still fit in the elderly with fixed incomes and low income people and will cut them one hell of a deal to get their vehicles fixed when no other shop will take em in because they can make more money off oilfield people.

 I am leery on using the term "oilfield trash." 99% of the people in oilfield have been great up here, if they show me respect, I will gladly show it back to them. I have met a few that are the reasons for that name spreading around, and it doesn't take but just a few people like that to make them all look like that. I have numerous family and friends (local and out of town, transplants or implants as they call themselves) and they are as nice as can be. My Fiancee is the assistant manager at a small local store that sells a very large quantity of FR clothes and steel toes boots/shoes/etc. She deals with the people working oilfield everyday. She sees plenty of the good people who come in respectful, and the people who come in demanding that they be catered to because we should be thankful for them. If you come up to her and demand something, she  will not tolerate that kind of attitude. However, she has on several occasions(yesterday was one of them) had a gentleman come up and ask her politely, “Excuse me maam, can you please help me find some FR coveralls and boots?” She helped him with everything, then proceeded to walk him to the checkout and had the cashier give him a 15% discount on his FR purchase because he was very respectful. I got a business card from him and he runs a construction outfit from Mississippi up here, so yes there are plenty of nice people coming up around here.

I know of an article about the man camps from a few months ago that they had no way to tax them so the city and county got no cut from them, they then proceeded to start taxing them on the square footage of the buildings. It is quite stupid right now to put a moratorium on man camp permits, the influx of people coming to this area right now is incredible. Rock Center did the report on Halloween night of this area, and it has just gotten absolutely crazy since. Most news reports of this area just report on all the high paying jobs and all the people needed to fill positions up here. Currently the job service in Williston lists over 2000 vacant jobs, and we are at a .9% unemployment rate. However, most of these news outlets fail to report immediately about the current lack of housing in our area.