Your primary responsibility as a gate guard is to account for everyone working on the rig and surrounding pad. In an emergency, you can be the person(s) they turn to to account for anyone missing. Sometimes you will find your primary responsibility muddied up by other activity occurring on the lease you are protecting. When we were working for a company paying much less than what we make now we noticed a marked increase in traffic. Turns out they were working on the pipeline that would eventually tie into nearby tank batteries. We successfully argued that the pipeline activity had nothing to do with our primary responsibility in regards to the rig and therefore did not need to be recorded. We make it a habit to have an open conversation with our company man which has resulted in a ton of benefits. Besides potable water, trash disposal, occasional meals, etc. we also no longer log the heavy trucks during a rig move-a big relief in our workload. We have learned to make decisions on our own; something you will have to decide for yourself. To us it is simple; we have a limit to the amount of work we will do for the money we are paid. I repeatedly hear stories of five plus pages recorded in a day. Unless it is a frack operation I fail to see how anyone can have that volume of traffic. I cannot counsel you on how to comport yourself on your gate. I only know that we do not record anything that does not have something to do with our rig and its activity. You have to achieve a happy medium where you meet your responsibilities, satisfy the folks you contract out to and feel properly compensated for the effort. At some point you have to determine your worth and the compensation you expect. For us it's certainly not attending daily safety meetings and/or recording multiple pages of traffic. As I have said repeatedly in the past; as a contractor it behooves you to seek out the highest compensation you can find. Trust me; it makes a heavy traffic day a lot easier to bear.
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