A time when ‘bootleg’ jeans were fashionable As a young man and recent graduate, I recall being awed and impressed in equal measure by my older, grey haired colleagues who had seemingly been everywhere whilst simultaneously doing everything, all at once. I remember vividly a conversation in which an older contract drilling engineer, who was working for one our clients, telling me that he planned to continue working until he was 70 years old. To a 23-year-old me, it seemed like madness. What made it even stranger was that he’d reached the heady heights of Drilling Manager in a large organisation which, in my mind at the time, was the pinnacle of a drilling career and then he decided he’d had enough, going back to the relative serenity and simplicity of a jobbing SDE. From my then very junior Drilling Engineer position, this seemed completely inexplicable. In the 20 years since then, I’ve often wondered if he did retire at 70, spending a few more years passing on his approac...
