Pros
If you are competent they tend to leave you alone, but they have had some changes in field management so that may change. There are some good people in the field. Field personal have a much different attitude about life than people who elect to stay in an office environment. If you like working away from home and don't have anyone who cares about you then this job may be for you. It is easy to save money if you never have time to spend it. You can work about as hard as you want. Good people stay active all day/night, but some people just sit and watch TV for 10 hours and work for 2. However, the person working on the flip side may make sure you have a short career if you choose to be the later. If you goal is to get into the oil industry then Columbine may be an OK place to start, but start looking for a new job after 6 months to a year. Make sure you learn to geosteer using gamma or this job it a complete waste of time.
Cons
- Long hours - Often extremely remote locations - In the past the Colorado office personnel have had very little idea what it meant to be a logger. They will often ask you to forgo planned vacation time with little or no notice. - Zero face time with the people telling you what to do. I know people that worked for columbine for years and have never seen the office. Your only contact with office personnel will be negative. (phone calls/emails letting you know that you did something wrong or phone calls asking you to go to a horrible place when you had other plans) - You are often put in bad situations with the people around you. [both at home and the rig] - Poorly bid contracts are making it impossible to pay people what it takes to stay in the oil field -- If you are fresh out of school you are currently better off looking on the environmental side of things. - They tend to treat their best staff poorly without any additional compensation. Expect to make 30 to 75k 30k if you are on rotations as a new hire... Which is a joke because you will only get a rotations once you threaten to quit. 75k if you never go home and happen to be on a rig that does multi lateral wells and stays busy. Please keep in mind if you work for a month at this job it is the same as working 9 forty hour work weeks. If you are new expect to get passed from rig to rig because you are the cheapest person working. Personal recommendation to potential new hires into the oil industry. Hold off until oil prices are back over $70 a barrel. Up to that point companies will not be willing to adjust wages back to an acceptable amount. The problems facing Columbine are universal to the industry. You are better off finding a local geology job. You can always go into the oil industry when times are go. It is more difficult to come out of the oil industry and find a good job in another area of geology.