BrothersReunited Website - New Features

One of the great things about not writing a newsletter very often is that we actually have some new features and general good news to report for once :-)

Status Updates
First of all we have added a 'Status Updates' feature. On the Home Tab and also at the top of your profile page is a field where you can update your profile with the latest news in your life - these updates get listed on your profile but more importantly get summarised on the Home Tab where your brothers can see them when logging in.

Even better your brothers can directly reply to your updates:

State/Country of Birth
For most people their Nationality is also their country of birth, but by no means all. Brothers has a relatively high proportion of people with dual nationality, or changed nationality. We now permit you to list both with the addition of a new field "State/Country of Birth". By default this has been defaulted to be the same as your nationality.

Message Summary
You will now see a summary of your message count on the Home Tab:

Active Forum Threads
You can now also stay on top of whats new in the main Forum boards direct from the Home Tab with this handy new feature:

Direct Clickthrough to Pages
Less obvious, but if you receive a URL in an email, or bookmark a page, you will now be taken directly to that page on logging in, withput stopping at the Home Tab. For example this link will take you to the Employment Available Forum Board.


Profile of the Day
Every day we will select one profile to feature on the Home Tab like this:

Watch Forum Threads
See an interesting Forum Thread that you would like to track? Just click the new link "Watch This Thread" and you will be emailed anytime someone posts a response to the thread.

Consulting Opportunities

Things were pretty quiet there for a couple of years but we recently received two urgent requests to provide Wireline consultants, which we had trouble filling.

If you have recent Wireline experience, are no longer employed by Schlumberger but would be interested in working again on a consulting basis please send us your details. We are particuarly interested in hearing from Field Engineers, Instrument Technicians and MDT/Sonde Specialists.

We have also been notfied by our good friend Mark Cooper of opportunities:

I wonder if you could let the brothers know that we exist and that we are looking for field technicians - we are actually short of slickliners right now - also crew chiefs with PLT experience/pressure eqpt experience.

Obituaries

We have received the following notices of Brothers passing away recently:

From René Heyte:

Our beloved husband and father Michel Belin has passed away in Pescara Italy on 19th of December 2009.

From Jim Hollingworth Nov 18th:

Just got word that Gordon Wright(listed on brothers) from Sale, lost his life in a drowning accident this morning. Anyone who worked in VEA in the past 30 years will remember Gordon he was one of a kind.


From Robin Smyth Oct 21st:

Regrettably Charles Sackey lost a long battle with cancer last week and passed away in Houston TX. I am not sure how to inform his brothers, several already know, nor how to change his status.

Heartbreaking news from Bob Prochnow Sept 23rd:

Carol Prochnow
A while back, Carol suggested I join Brothers Reunited. It took me a while, but I've finally followed her suggestion.

For those of you who may not yet have heard, Carol passed away on September 4, after fighting off a recurrence of cancer over the past year.

Despite increasing limitations from MS, Carol was able to continue working full time at Schlumberger up until the new cancer was discovered in early December last year.

Early last year, we were told several times Carol only had a few days to months left - and she beat all of those predictions. But when MD Anderson concluded in late July the cancer in her liver had progressed too far to warrant further treatment, Carol knew she was at the end of her fight, and spent the remaining time at home, visiting with family and friends.

She was doing well enough for Bobby to go back to school for the first two weeks of classes. When he came down with swine flu, and was quarantined, Carol was clearly worried she was running out of time and wouldn't see Bobby again.

As she has for most of her life, she fought hard that last week to hang on until Bobby could come back home - and was able to spend a few more days with us before she left us.

Despite short notice over a holiday weekend, the turnout at Carol's Memorial Service on September 8 was incredible - with around 250 people attending - many travelling to Houston for the service.

... snip ...

Also, instead of sending flowers to Carol's service, we set up a Memorial Fund for her on the National MS website.

Even though it was the cancer that took her from us, it was MS that shaped her life - and that she fought so hard to continue working full-time - up until the cancer came back.

[Personal Note: I knew Carol in Austin when I briefly consulted there in 1998 and have warm memories of a fun, energetic and enthusiastic person. So hard to reconcile with the tragic tale of MS and Cancer above.]

Sarawak Rainforest Interhash 2010

For those drinkers with a running problem among us, Interhash this year is in Kuching, Malaysia 29th June - 4th July this year, which seems the perfect place to have it (especially given that the Hash House Harriers were founded in Malaysia).

I have already heard from Rob Algie and Milton Edwards - who else is planning to make the trip?

Updated Early Retirement Plan

A member has given us an advance look at the new early retirement scheme:

Dear Employees,

Due to the current financial situation caused by the slowdown in the economy, Management has decided to implement a scheme to put workers of 40 years of age and above on early retirement. This scheme will be known as RAPE (Retire Aged People Early).

Persons selected to be RAPED can apply to management to be considered for the SHAFT scheme (Special Help After Forced Termination). Persons who have been RAPED and SHAFTED will be reviewed under the SCREW programme (Scheme Covering Retired-Early Workers). A person may be RAPED once, SHAFTED twice and SCREWED as many times as Management deems appropriate. Persons who have been RAPED could get AIDS (Additional Income for Dependants & Spouse) or HERPES (Half Earnings for Retired Personnel Early Severance).

Obviously persons who have AIDS or HERPES will not be SHAFTED or SCREWED any further by Management.

Persons who are not RAPED and are staying on will receive as much SHIT (Special High Intensity Training) as possible. Management has always prided itself on the amount of SHIT it gives employees. Should you feel that you do not receive enough SHIT, please bring this to the attention of your Supervisor, who has been trained to give you all the SHIT you can handle.

Sincerely,
The Management

Updated Segments List

When I built BrothersReunited, it was very much with the goal of tracking down myfriends and I patterned it after the Schlumberger of my era ('87-'95 or so).

Accordingly I used 'old school' segment names - Sedco, Flopetrol, Anadrill ect (though not as old school as some would like). I often get emails from young Schlumberger employees along the lines of "Segment XYZ no longer exists and should be renamed ABC" - which misses the point. This site is not even designed for current employees - it caters to those who have moved on and are trying to track down people from their era.

That said time marches on and there have been about three generations of segment names since I left, so my intransigence is becoming harder to defend. Recently I had this request fromJulian Anigbogu:

Could you please add EMS to the Segment list and there is no OFS anymore. I would really appreciate that. I selected OFS/IPM because I am not part of any segment and EMS is almost like the old OFS except that operations has been removed from it.

EMS? Who on earth are EMS? Just shows how far I have drifted from the business! So - I am ready to add all these funny new segments - please email with your requests at makepeace@jawasoft.com and we will try to bring the site back up to date.

How to call the Police when you are old and don't move so fast anymore...

George Phillips , an elderly man, from Meridian, Mississippi, was going up to bed, when his wife told him that he'd left the light on in the garden shed, which she could see from the bedroom window. George opened the back door to go turn off the light, but saw that there were people in the shed stealing things.

He phoned the police, who asked "Is someone in your house?" He said "No, but some people are breaking into my garden shed and stealing from me".
Then the police dispatcher said "All patrols are busy. You should lock your doors and an officer will be along when one is available."

George said, "Okay." He hung up the phone and counted to 30. Then he phoned the police again.

"Hello, I just called you a few seconds ago because there were people stealing things from my shed. Well, you don't have to worry about them now because I just shot them." and he hung up.
Within five minutes, six Police Cars, a SWAT Team, a Helicopter, two Fire Trucks, a Paramedic, and an Ambulance showed up at the Phillips' residence, and caught the burglars red-handed.

One of the Policemen said to George, "I thought you said that you'd shot them!"
George said, "I thought you said there was nobody available!"

Rgds
Ewan Makepeace
info@brothersreunited.com
http://www.brothersreunited.com