WORK IN PROGRESS : Dangerous Drill : Guy Schelebo thrives on the challenge of coping with the hazards on Platform Gilda.

The warning signs are posted everywhere and they don’t bother Guy Schelebo one bit. CAUTION: HARD HAT AREA. CAUTION: HIGH NOISE AREA. DANGER: POISONOUS GAS.

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To get to his desk, Guy swings Tarzan-style on a thick, knotted rope that carries him from the rolling, pitching deck of a work boat onto the lower landing of an oil platform 10 miles out to sea.

He scrambles along the lower catwalk and up the steep flight of stairs, giving no notice to the warning signs or red buttons marked “Emergency Shut Down,” and “Abandon Platform.” Nor does he pay any attention to the oxygen masks that line the wall, each attached to a tank with 15 minutes of sweet, life-preserving air.

Guy has his own 30-minute oxygen tank hanging on the wall just behind his chair--the post of the No. 2 operator.

“I just stand up and lean back and I’m in my tank,” Guy says. “If we have an evacuation, my job is to stay with the foreman, shut the equipment down, shut in the wells before abandoning the platform.”

Welcome to Platform Gilda, or Chernobyl West, as the wags on other Unocal platforms call it.

All oil and natural gas platforms harbor dangers, but Gilda is known for its special blend of toxic gases.

In addition to crude oil, Gilda’s wells pump explosive methane gas.

The methane drawn from deep beneath the ocean bottom is laced with hydrogen sulfide, a particularly lethal gas with a rotten-egg odor that can keel over the burliest roughneck with one sniff. Even modest amounts bring on instant paralysis and death.

Guy speaks of hydrogen sulfide like a big game hunter who knows how to stalk his prey and knows never to turn his back on the jungle. He almost seems to admire his nemesis, the ultimate match for his wits and training. “You have to respect it,” he says.

A poisonous gas leak is the kind of thing that can gnaw on a man, particularly when he makes his nighttime rounds of checking gauges and taking meter readings while everyone else is asleep.

Unocal and its federal overseers stress safety at every turn. They point out that Platform Gilda, after more than 10 years of operation, has never had an injury-causing hydrogen sulfide leak. No one gets on the platform without a safety lecture on how to use the oxygen tank and get to safety. Everyone must wear a hard hat, goggles and earplugs.

Depending on one’s fortitude, the endless series of safety lectures and drills can either offer comfort from chemical dread or continually refresh a sense of impending misfortune.

“A lot of people are afraid of this platform because of the hydrogen sulfide,” Guy says. “They would rather not work out here with all of the hazards.”

For Guy, the reluctance of others has been a boon to his career. In four years on Platform Gilda, he has risen to the position of No. 2 production operator, or chief trouble-shooter. On occasion, he fills in for the production foreman. That kind of advancement, he says, would have taken years longer on other platforms or on shore.

“When we get an opening, we tend to fill it from someone on the platform, because no one else wants to come out.”

It’s not just the threat of hydrogen sulfide that keeps other employees at bay.

First there’s the daily boat trip, from the Port of Hueneme, that ferries Guy and about two dozen other workers to their eight-hour shifts on the platform. In rough weather, wind-whipped swells can turn a pleasant 40-minute commute into a stomach-churning boat ride from hell.

High seas sometimes force the boats and the relief crew to return to shore, leaving Gilda’s workers to do a double shift. Other times the boat must keep its distance or risk being smashed by waves into the platform’s steel legs. To get aboard, crew members must be hoisted in nets attached to the swinging arm of a crane.

“A lot of people don’t like it, but I think it is kind of fun,” Guy says. He admits he’s a bit of a thrill-seeker, something left over from his years in the Air Force.

Then, the weekly rotation of working days, swing shift and overnight shift is rough on the body clock, rougher on marriages. At 34, Guy is divorced. He says he’d like to get remarried. For now, he spends much of his free time on shore with his 7-year-old daughter.

Once on the platform, workers find there are no secrets. There’s no room of one’s own, no way to escape the loud and sometimes deafening cacophony of machinery or the ongoing jokes and good-natured ribbing of roughnecks, roustabouts and others.

“You either like it or you don’t,” says Dick Marshall, Unocal’s superintendent for Ventura County. “A lot of people get claustrophobic. They don’t like getting stuck out there. We find out about that pretty quickly.”

In Guy’s book, these are inconsequential matters that would never keep him from Gilda, his mistress at sea. Guy is proud of the platform, as are his co-workers.

The money is good and they want to be here. These oilmen work together, eat together, sometimes bunk together. When they hit shore, they go out for beers together. “We’re like family,” Guy says.

Seated behind the desk of the No. 2 operator, Guy appears to be the master of his universe. A siren screams. A warning light flashes. Guy darts from his chair, flips a switch and calmly radios instructions to his helper, the No. 3 operator.

Guy scrutinizes the rest of the panel of warning lights and monitors that fill one wall. “If you don’t get to a problem in time, there is a cascading effect and other equipment will start going down,” he says.

While superiors are busy ordering parts and juggling personnel, the No. 2 operator is the one with his hands on the controls. If something goes wrong, the easiest solution is shutting this $100-million hulk of machinery. In fact, Gilda’s safety mechanisms can do that without human help. As Guy knows, a true master handles problems before they get out of hand and keeps Gilda running at full capacity.

On a good day, Gilda pumps 5,000 barrels to shore and 5 million cubic feet of natural gas, or enough for 46,000 homes.

For much of his shift, Guy wades through reams of paperwork and jokes around with his fellow oilmen to cut the monotony.

“It’s hours of boredom, with some hair-raising experiences,” Guy says. “I like the challenge of all this high-tech equipment. I have to make the decisions, the right decisions, and make them fast.”

Some might say that Guy has oil in his blood. His father once worked with a drilling crew in the oil fields north of Ventura and his brother is in the business too. It seems only natural for the gung-ho son of an oilman to drift offshore, now that drilling in Ventura’s oil fields is played out.

Every two hours Guy makes his rounds inspecting wells, jotting down the readings of hundreds of meters attached to pumps, compressors and other gadgets. He points out the strategic location of one of Gilda’s hydrogen sulfide detectors, a high-tech reincarnation of the canaries that coal miners carry with them underground.

“They are your best pals out here,” Guy says. “We take good care of them and they take care of us.”

* THE PREMISE: Work in Progress is a semi-regular column that focuses on people who work not-so-ordinary jobs.