The L0T3K Magazine

How to Become a Wireline Logging Engineer: Part 2

The journey to become a professional wireline logging engineer starts when an organization hires you as a new field engineer in training. As I mentioned before, the logging engineer profession is challenging mentally, emotionally, and physically and it is not for everyone. Some candidates become interested in the profession simply because of the high earning potential without fully understanding what the job entails. Although the reward is attractive, the demands are equally challenging and require people of certain attitudes to survive the physical, emotional, and mental rigor the job demands. For this reason, most wireline services organizations have designed a pre-school program as the starting point for a new hire. The pre-school program exposes the new engineer to what the job entails and allows him or her to decide if the job and the schedule fit his or her life style.

The pre-school period allows the new employee to have some exposure to the work environment before committing to join the organization. At this time, the new hire signs a temporary contract with the organization which allows him or her go through the pre-school program without committing to full employment with the organization. The pre-school period usually lasts for one to three months. During this period the potential employee spends time in a field location working with full time logging engineers and crew on rig site mostly as an observer. The new hire is usually assigned a training program and a mentor. The mentor is a senior field engineer who will help the new hire go through the pre-school program and evaluate his or her readiness to go to basic logging engineers' training school.

During the pre-school, the new hire must accomplished several key tasks required of a field engineer. This period is especially challenging for a new hire because he or she is exposed to many different new tasks all of which he or she must master in relatively short time. The pre-school period is also stressful because the new trainee engineer is the favorite for all full fledge field engineer to assign their various extra duties. The pre-school period is designed to test the physical, mental, and emotional strength of the trainee engineer to the limit while helping him or her to learn the rudimentary of the logging engineer profession. Most new hire will pretty much make up his or her mind whether this is the right job or not before the end of the pre-school period.

After completing the pre-school successfully, a new hire can decide to accept the offer of a full employment with the organization. The new hire is then ready to continue the next stage in the training program which is attending the basic school for logging engineers. The basic school lasts for about 12 to 15 weeks depending on the organization. The basic school will be discussed in part 3 of this article.