My Journey

Now I’m here again. After a tiring job, I slept for 16 hrs nonstop. Sometimes I really enjoyed this life, sometimes I feel my life sucks. Sometimes I feel I wanna do job like normal people do; spending 5 working days at the office, and 2 days weekend for family and private life. The nature of my job doesn’t allow me to do that. Basically, I’m on call. Since my location is more scheduled, so I know how to estimate the average days on base and offshore.

But again, the nature of the job is on demand. There is no delay time because offshore time is expensive. Any delay, any lost time, any unexpected situation that leads to excessive cost is undesirable. If my job is supposed to start at midnight, for instance, I have to start whatsoever.

Anyway, this affects my personal life. I can’t go to church regularly. If my weekend is spent on base, I can go to church. But if I’m at offshore location, I can’t go to church. For some people, lack of time to do religious activity is a big matter that in the end leave them with no choice other than leaving the job.

The worst time about being a field engineer is when you have problem during the job. Lost time, problem, name it. You have to make a call to town, explaining the situation. You have to negotiate with client about subsequent tasks to do. You have to manage your crew to make sure your troubleshooting doesn’t trigger unnecessary extra problems.

I’ve been through that. I’m more skilled and mature in the life of a field engineer now. I need to study more and more about the new technology, though. There are lots of products I haven’t run nor understood.

But now, spending Sunday afternoon enjoying lunch I  made by myself: sayur lodeh, tahu goreng, and sambal terasi tomat, while watching TV like normal people do, is a heaven. Writing my blog, browsing nonjob-related articles, browsing YouTube, taking a nap, enjoying extra beauty time, on my far away Mom’s birthday, is totally a heaven, incomparable by my payslip ^_^. I really thank God for this simple happiness.

Growing adult makes you more understand that people take “happiness” differently. Some measure it by the amount of money they make, some by amount of time they spend with their beloved. I appreciate my job, my colleagues, my time in this company because I can make a living here. But I also take seriously my time with my Mom and Dad. I fly home during my days off. I do my religious activities during off job.

My life is maybe unbalanced. But I’m happy to have my Mom and Dad, my job, my colleagues, and my experience now. I believe this will end some time. Maybe I got a new experience, new career, new assignment abroad, new education, or just new way of life. I’ll be married one day. So I won’t complain much. Enjoying this imperfect life, with imperfect people, and imperfect environment is enough for living it perfectly.

The oil city,

With love