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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   1437 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 14, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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What's your plan ... E? Maybe F. Yeah, F is better.

Whats your Plan F?

By Plan F, I mean the Plan you have for your life if everything goes to shit, but not by some horrible tragedy outside of your control. A house-fire, a weird accident -- these things you recover from with some combination of insurance, help from friends and family, and outright charity.

Plan F is closer to; "My ice cream business was going great! But then my business partner - who I knew used to deal a little coke - decided to commit insurance fraud and I'm broke."

For me, I think I'm on the periphery of a semi-hostile / hazardous area that has some sort of amazing natural resource. There's always work for a western / American "fixer" here. Logisics middle man. Plausible deniability bro. Even just a scout for hyper-aggressive capital deployment.

So, what's your Plan F?

I've never built a plan F in high fidelity. I can find a job anywhere - one sufficient enough to live on and stabilize. I really only need a cardboard box as a house if my family abandons me.

After that, I'd pick a career where you're trading loneliness for currency. Working on an Oil Rig (if they hire people over 30 for that?) is a great example.

Working on an Oil Rig (if they hire people over 30 for that?) is a great example.

Kinda tricky with the current state of outsourcing. My dad was an early Oil Rig participant as a UK citizen with military electrician training 50-odd years ago, and he essentially got grandfathered along with the industry to the point he later ended up a very senior Controls Engineer without a university degree by the time he retired. Circa 2020s the vast majority of rig workers are Filipinos, Indians or Bangladeshis since it's just not really commercially sound to pay a Westerner the multiplier on their base salary to make it worth it. You might be able to swing something in certain countries with stronger legal protections, but still likely requires a lot of time and connections.

Was he working in the North Sea? Half of Scotland seems to be involved in Oil and Gas, but my impression is that the overwhelming majority are locals/white.

Originally English/North Sea but ended up in Australia and working broadly across Asiapacific for essentially an Oil Rig Consulting Firm where developing world's pretty normalized.

Thought so. That didn't strike me as modern picture of the situation in either Britain or the US, which are the Default™ expectations, or at least what I assumed without this context.

I would've assumed Canada without the clarification.

Yeah fair. He didn't have a ton of experience in the US industry since it was essentially the only one that actually cared about him not having an undergraduate qualification whilst grandfathered UK credentials got him in everywhere else.

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