Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, this is very common. It's simple economics: the barrier to entry for the majority of "starting at 100K" jobs was just geography, due to a short supply of workers and a huge demand. Eventually enough workers flood in, the wages drop, and the only people who can get a high starting salary are the highly skilled tradesmen (drill operators, welders, etc) Tie onto that the fact that rents are relatively high due to…
Skilled vocational workers still make the cash (and drivers for other reasons), but grunts make grunt wages. There are several state grants to get more vocational training, not only for oil but for the extremely short supply of people for infrastructure projects. Due to worker and driver shortages many building projects in the east are delayed or taking much longer than thought.
Slacker? Stoner? Bad grades? Well ok then, maybe the trades are for you. This is why when I worked construction, on most crews I worked on, I was surrounded by fucking losers. When I got into the specialized stuff, I got to work with real tradesmen.