Job sheet · four days on one hole

The Driller's Log

Every evening on a drilling job, before the generator goes quiet, somebody sits on the tailgate with a clipboard and fills in the day. Depth reached, what the bit hit, how the weather behaved, who showed up. Nobody enjoys it. Everybody relies on it.

We drill and case water wells on small country plots west of Brasília, and we also sell the pumps, wiring and pipe fittings that go with them. Over the years the paper log has turned out to be the most useful tool on the truck, and it is not a tool at all. It is a habit: one sheet, one hour, the same few boxes, day after day until the job is done.

These pages borrow that sheet and turn it toward a different kind of work. The English is aimed at an American audience with fifty or more birthdays on the odometer, people who want to keep their focus and their recall in good order through an ordinary week. Nothing here is a method from a laboratory. It is a crew's way of not losing track, offered for whatever use it has at a kitchen table.

The four day lines

1. Day 1
   The same-hour entryWhy the log gets written at the same time every evening, and what a fixed hour does for a busy head.
2. Day 2
   Slow and deepA bit that is rushed wanders off line. Giving one long task your whole attention, with no hurry in it.
3. Day 3
   The pump schedulePressure switches and timers that run without anyone thinking about them, and the household routines that can do the same.
4. Day 4
   The holding tankStoring what you learn in short notes, so tomorrow can draw on it without having to remember it all at once.

How to read a sheet

Each day sheet has a column on the side with three small boxes, the way our real ones do: what the weather was doing, who was on site, and a one-line note. Read those first if you are short on time. The longer text explains the habit, and each one closes with a stamped box about when to bring a question to your own doctor, because a crew can describe a routine but cannot examine anyone.

Paperwork at the bottom of the clipboard

The four short pages linked at the top hold the dull but necessary parts: a list of the rig words used here, a handful of plain answers, who keeps this log and how it pays its way, and what happens to information about visitors. We kept them apart so the day sheets can stay about the days.

The rest of our company, lives at the main page in Portuguese and the crew's English page.