Yours to explore: working for Shell in Assen, the Netherlands
Duration: 04:31
This is my office for today!
I always say that I sort of fell in love with the pipeline.
A switch went off.
I knew that "Yeah, this is what I want to do."
My name is Cindy Dirkx, I am a Pipeline Maintenance Engineer and I've been
working for Shell for almost two years.
The most exciting thing about working for Shell NAM is the diversity.
We have different assets, different installations, and that means that every day is
different.
Sometimes I will be on location for a whole week, but for some periods I will be in
the office four days a week.
Pipeline maintenance engineering involves the maintenance of all the underground
pipelines that belong to the asset land.
When we work on a job outside, safety is always our first concern.
An internal pipeline inspection is done with an intelligent pigging.
The tool makes measurements of the wall thickness.
It takes about eight weeks to process the results and after we receive them, we define
if there are any issues with the pipeline that need to be repaired.
We work a lot with external expertise.
The job of our department is to arrange the correct process of getting all the
information to the external expertise party.
The city of Assen is a small city.
Outside of Assen, you are very close to nature.
You get rest, you get peace, you have a lot of space and I think that's a big advantage
of Assen.
I live in a small village very close to Groningen and I travel to Assen every day.
Usually I finish work between 17:00 and 18:00 o'clock.
When I arrive home, I first take care of my little girl.
Most of the time she's already had dinner and then we have all the time to go to the
playground, or get on the bike.
After my daughter is asleep, if the weather is good, sometimes I take my motorbike
and go out for a little ride through the region.
Within ten minutes we are in the city centre of Groningen.
There are many things to do, it has a great social life, it gets a lot of attention for
cultural events.
We have a great university over there, and Shell NAM, in combination with the city
of Groningen, offers you the possibility to have a sparkling life, but also to develop a
worldwide career.
Within your individual development plan, you set certain goals that you want to
approach.
I think that values such as integrity and honesty are really, really present.
I really feel one of the team and one of the guys.
I never have the feeling that I am approached differently by anyone.
We have such a diverse company where there's so many disciplines and so many
challenges that we are developing and innovating every year, so I am sure that for
each person there will be a challenging job available.
My career at Shell NAM at the moment has definitely met my expectations.
The type of work that I am performing now, the diversity and the challenge that I find
in it, it's really above expectations.
If I take a look at my life I say, "Yeah, I have a great life" and at the moment Shell
NAM is contributing to it.