I can't edit that other comment any more. I did once because I had a long anecdote trying to give context to the pet name I apply to them. After I reread it I felt like it was too long and meandering.

I worked with them in the mid 90's starting as a JFE running a slimhole MWD that had been developed in Canada by a Canadian company that was bought out by Scumbagger. The tool was never designed to operate at depths and temperatures that are routine in the GoM region and it had numerous issues causing low reliability. Add to that a boom in horizontal drilling using small diameter drillstem for the long reach and there was a busy market for the tool. It was not uncommon to be out for 35 or more days, return to the shop and clean and restock everything, then be called out within 48 hours for another long stint a few miles from Bumfuck or way out on some broken down platform in the GoM out of Fouchon.

The maintenance guys in the shop who were supposed to repair problems, document repairs, and bad tag things that were NFG so they could be repaired had a bit of a lackadaisical attitude about it. It was very common to be deployed with one working MWD, one that failed every roll test and was useless for toolface data, and a pair of gamma tools that may or may not work out of the box. Add to that the chronic absence of spare parts to build and configure tools for the downhole conditions and Scumbagger's insistence that their herd of high-dollar PhDs knew more about the tools and how they should be configured than the FEs who routinely deployed them downhole.

Then throw in clear incentives for FSMs and other managers to screw the FEs out of field bonus they earned. We earned bonuses by keeping our tools in the hole successfully and earning high praise from company men, geologists, etc and were supposed to be paid after each job. FSMs would pore over bit run summaries looking for any excuse to avoid paying the bonuses because all bonus money they failed to pass to FEs went in a pool that was split by managers (who never went into the field.)

It was organized theft by a bunch of FSMs that expected brown-nosing ass-kissers to help them feel good about their character failings and rewarded the brownest noses with fully stocked boxes for their jobs, guaranteed tools that worked, and the cleanest rigs with the best accommodations and working conditions.

Those like myself who refused to kiss ass found themselves stuck out on platforms that wouldn't pass MMS (Minerals Management Service) inspection and would get shut down for the repairs prolonging the duration of a job that was already gonna drag on for weeks longer that it should have due to all the bullshit that everyone on site had to overcome to make it all happen.

I came into the shop after my jobs and cleaned all my tools, identified those that were NFG, checked my required inventory parts list against the supplies I had in the box and put in requests for parts that would be necessary for the next job. Then I filed all my bit run summaries, checked out with my FSM and went home knowing that the bastard was gonna call me if a shit job came up. My box was supposed to ship with me since I was responsible for it. It was normal for me to get called back out, go to the shop to load my gear and my box only to find that one of the brown-nosers had taken my fully stocked box with them "because they didn't have time to get theirs ready". I would be stuck rushing to request parts to fill a box that hadn't been cleaned or inventoried and would regularly find that parts I needed (O-rings, spacers, pulser tool heads) were not in stock even though I could look through the chain link into the parts section and see them in the bins. I resorted to breaking the lock on the parts room and helping myself to everything I needed or simply climbing the chain link in and out.

Other engineers hated that until I passed parts to them that they also needed but had been told were not in stock.

There was so much dysfunction there. It was nothing at all like any other part of the oilfield that I had ever experienced. I had worked pipelining, as a roustabout, as a floor hand, a water hauler, on seismic crews, etc and had never run into so many people all in it for themselves with no regard for the truth. It was expected that we would lie to clients about the tool reliability so that they wouldn't kick us off the location.

I had a meeting with Anadrill's VP and their Global Personnel director and brought up the fact that it seemed to be routine to expect FEs to lie to clients and the VP responded in a carefully worded response that our clients understand that may not get the highest service quality level as advertised but that in exchange, they can get the service for a discount.

One time I answered a client's question about one of the tool's advertised characteristics that made it popular with bean counters. He phrased the question in a way that asked for my own personal experience as it related to that tool performance and so I answered honestly based on events from the job that I had just completed where the tool definitely failed to deliver as advertised.

That honesty caused the company man to kick us off the location in favor of his preferred MWD provider, Halliburton. Pretty funny stuff until I got called into the inquisition about a week later.

To Be Continued in another reply...