Can someone who works in this environment clarify how the pay works, by that I mean obviously you work a roster, ie 14 on and 7 off, so do you only get paid when you are at work and get no pay when off or do you get paid some money on your off week?

The various rosters got me thinking about this (7/7, 14/7 21/7 etc), if you get paid for your days off then a shorter (7/7) roster would mean equal pay for less work and I cant imagine any any company jumping at that

Anyone

no pay on weeks off / down time.

Paid for days on. Not paid for days off.

EDIT:

I should clarify. Some people choose to be permanent staff employees on an annual salary. That annual saary is usually based (say) working in the Calgary office on a usual Mon-Fri 8-5 schedule. When they move up to site, their schedule changes to whatever they work on site, and someone, somewhere has the thankless task of adjusting their monthly/bi-weekly salary up or down according to their hours worked. But they will usually get something.

I work on a day-rate basis, and bill my company once a month for the number of days worked that period.

yea mandy summed it up i say i would not be able to do any more then 21/7 dunno how someone could do a whole month on the trot

Hmm, I dunno - I once did 5 months straight with no days off, but that was before Mrs energysolutions came along

I believe there are actually rules as to the length of days you can stay 'in' for. However they get broken / bended.

These jobs seem to be a way of making decent cash, is that a result of camp work paying better (i.e. more$/hour) than a local job or because people in camp typically work long hours (probably cos theres not much else to do) and the money simply adds up, or, as I suspect, a combination of both factors?

Yeah, too long couldnt be healthy, either physically or mentally

I read an article recently about someone speaking at a FIFO conference with a large audience, he asked how many in the room were married and got a show of hands, he then asked ho many were on their first marriage and didnt get one hand.

If thats true it`s a stark warning of the downsides of camp work

I should add that around the same time I took a mystery illness/virus, was incredibly sick, lost a stone in weight in a week (and I was thin to start with) and was off work for almost three months

I think there`s a lesson in there somewhere

Yes, over the years I've known lots of people in various oil camps and it's done nothing for their relationships. Great for unencumbered people wanting to build up an initial nest eggs....as long as wife number one doesn't wander off with it!

Good point, you could find yourself overworked, lonely and poor all at once