A Spanner In The Works

By Todd Maguire on November 21, 2013 in Other

Photo: chicagoboyz.net

Greg had embraced the Australian mining boom, working on an oil-drilling rig off the coast of Western Australia. The money was good but the hours were long. Greg managed to maintain his sanity by sneaking off to Indonesia every four months for a week or two of spicy nasi goreng, cold Bintang beer and perfect Indian Ocean waves.

His supervisor on the oil rig was a first class pain in the backside. He was unaffectionately known as ‘Potholes’ – someone everyone always tried to avoid. Potholes would pick his targets to harass and ridicule. Unfortunately, his radar always had Greg in its sights. Greg was constantly given tedious tasks to perform and managed to complete said tasks with minimal stuff ups. But some days Greg was all thumbs, so Potholes keenly watched his every move like a prairie dog.

It had been a few weeks since Greg had made a blunder and Potholes had dropped off his case fractionally.

Unfortunately, though, Greg had begun to lose interest in his job. He had been slugging away for five years now and had snookered away a healthy pile of cash. But he never let on about his current lack of enthusiasm.

It was an evil day weather-wise one Tuesday. The gale force wind was whipping the ocean into a frenzy, enough to blow a dog off a chain – not the best working conditions for the drilling crew. Greg’s job description was now to manhandle a huge three-foot long shifting spanner in coordination with the head driller’s orders. The spanner was large enough to tighten King Kong’s nuts and Greg was performing remarkably well in the dire conditions. That is, until Potholes appeared on the scene.

Unfortunately the wicked presence of his boss had poor Greg rattled, and it showed. As Greg attempted to tighten a bolt on the huge drill, he slipped and lost the huge spanner down the freshly drilled hole. The spanner landed in just the right spot to get wedged in the drill and seize the motor of the specialised machinery.

Potholes was ropeable, to say the least. It was going to be a costly exercise to retrieve the spanner and repair the drill. A helicopter had to travel from the mainland with a specialist crew and tools to remove the wayward shifting spanner. Two days of downtime was a very expensive exercise.

When the spanner was retrieved from the drilled hole, Potholes had the utmost pleasure in presenting it to the hopelessly embarrassed Greg.

“You can have this spanner back now Greg, you peanut.” He made a real show of the presentation in front of the drilling crew. “Wash your hands, grab your belongings and get on the next bloody helicopter out of here. You’ll never set foot on an oil platform again in your life, you dill!”

Greg admitted that he had a streak of clumsiness about him but that was not an open ticket for Potholes to treat him with such contempt.

As Greg prepared to board the departing helicopter, he looked directly at his nemesis and smiled. “You can stick your job, Potholes. You’re doing me a favour anyhow!”

Greg gripped hold of the huge three-foot spanner, pushed the supervisor to the side and tossed the spanner directly back into the hole from where it had just been salvaged. “Now that should keep you busy, you knob. All the best Potholes, and have a nice day.”

The entire crew gave Greg a healthy round of applause as the helicopter took off headed to the mainland.