In the Oil and Gas world there are really only two types of Landman, ‘In-House’ and ‘Independent’ Landmen.
For those of you that aren’t familiar with Landman terminology, an ‘In-House’ Landman is your OU and Tech polo wearing bro that sits in the offices of Apache, Concho, Diamondback, Oxy, etc and are mostly doing mineral Landwork related to putting well locations together (title, trades, more title, more sitting around). ‘Independent’ Landmen usually work as contractors, usually came up the hard way by working in the courthouse, pulling books, doing runsheets, and most of the work for the bro’s back in the office.
I was up until March 6th 2020, an ‘In-House’ Landman. Wait, wait….before you come at me, I did not go to Tech or OU and I wasn’t even in a frat, bro! (probably why I got laid off!!)
For the 5 years I have been in the business, I always thought I would be a career ‘In-House’ Landman, shit I even thought I might do that crazy thing where I work at the same company for my whole career. But that didnt really work out according to plan.
Since I got laid off and moved out of my apartment I have been hiding out here on Lake McQueeny, applying for jobs (the few Land jobs that pop up in times like this) and not getting anything back. A man starts thinkin drinking and when that happens you start realizing things. I’ve realized the thing that really chapped my ass about getting laid off from Shit Co Incorporated was the fact that I had no control over the situation. My midget boss around the corner didn’t like that I didn’t kiss his ass so he made sure no one else in the company wanted to take a chance having me on their team.
Well what’s the best way to try and have control over your own destiny? Be your own boss. Run your own shop. Put your money where your mouth is and hustle.
So after a lot of applications that went nowhere, I took a chance on reaching out to someone for a contract gig and it seems to be a good fit. Seems like a good enough situation that the LLC paperwork is getting filed right now and I am already wheeling and dealing and doing my own business development work.
This is going to be a big change but I think it will be a change that will do me good. At a minimum it is going to put me in a place where even after 5 years of landwork I will still be learning a lot and developing a lot of new tools (like a thick skin from hearing no all the time). Plus I get my wish to stay in the industry and try and scrape through this downturn.
To close, I look forward to being the exclusive Land Services company of EFT. I promise white glove service, competitive prices, and a CEO you can tweet at.
And Christmas gifts like it is 2014 again.
