offshore skills that apply to construction

First, a disclaimer: nothing you’re about to read should end up on your LinkedIn profile or your CV.

Now, let’s begin.

If you’ve ever worn a hardhat, those skills are transferable.

If you own a pair of steel-toe boots, or have even laced them up or slipped them on, you guessed it, those skills are transferable. (Go back to my earlier post about the guy in sandals breaking concrete. Construction leaves room for interpretation. That gentleman must have Wolverine DNA.)

If you smoke, have smoked, or can simply tolerate cigarette smoke, those skills are transferable.

If you chew: tobacco, snuff, snus, Zyn's, you guessed it, transferable.

If you can handle foul language, whether spoken, written, or delivered through creative hand signals, defiantly transferable.

If you don’t collapse when someone loses their temper, or you happen to be Gen X or older—those skills are transferable.

If you’ve got a “record,” consider it transferrable.

For those of you who’ve read this far, I’ll be sharing more serious posts in the weeks ahead. My goal is to shed light on the opportunities available in construction for my oilfield brethren. There’s plenty of room on this side of the water.

But let me be straight with you: the starting pay may not match what you’re used to. There are no boat rides, no helicopter rides, no Billy Pugh basket rides. You will get your hands dirty. There aren’t many roles for my MWD friends, but rig hands will fit right in.

All joking aside, making the switch into construction after being laid off in 2017 turned out to be the best thing for me and my family. Reinventing myself at 40 wasn’t the plan, but life doesn’t always care about our plans.

2025 has been one hell of a ride, and the seven years before it were absolutely brutal. I can’t count the nights I stared at the ceiling, wondering, God, how will I make it? But every morning, I kept my prayer simple: Give me today my daily bread. And every day, somehow, it came. Sometimes just enough.