A retired saturation diver's 5 minute talk made me rethink my whole career path

Last weekend I was at a dive gear swap meet in Tampa and this older guy, must have been pushing 70, was just shooting the breeze by a table of old helmets. He did saturation diving in the North Sea back in the 80s, and he told me something that stuck with me. He said, "Kid, I spent 14 years of my life living in a steel tube the size of a closet, and I missed my daughter growing up. All that money, and I can't get those years back." I've been doing inland commercial diving for about 5 years now, mostly bridge inspections and pipeline work around the Gulf, and I always thought saturation was the ultimate goal. It hit me different because I just took a 6 week job in Louisiana that has me away from my wife for a month at a time, and I realized I'm already making the same trade he did, just for less pay. Has anyone else walked away from a big offshore gig after hearing a veteran talk about the toll it took on their family? How do you balance the money against the time away?

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richard_shah20d ago

It's funny you bring this up because I had a buddy who did the exact opposite. He was all in on the Gulf rigs, making bank, buying trucks and boats he never had time to use. Then his oldest kid started calling the neighbor "dad" when he came home after a four month hitch and he just packed it in. Sold the truck, moved back to Mississippi, and now he runs a little welding shop out of his garage. He still works crazy hours sometimes, but he eats dinner with his kids every single night and says he's never been poorer or happier. I mean, I hear that old diver and I think about my friend every time. That money is real, but so is the time, and you can't ever get a single day of it back.