I work at a place that makes electricity. Everyone seems to love the product so all is good. Tell me how much you want to earn, and I can tell you which job. Finding enough people that can do the work, stay clean, pass background checks, and pass the exams is the real challenge. Keeping them from going somewhere else for a huge pay raise is another challenge. Skilled crafts are where it is at now.
AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) said:Skilled crafts are where it is at now.
To some extent that's been the case for a while.
One of the many perks of being in maintenance is that, no matter how slow it gets, you don't get laid off. While there are layoffs in production, and overtime has been eliminated, I'm working today and most of the maintenance team is here, some with nothing specific to do other than make money.
AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) said:I work at a place that makes electricity. Everyone seems to love the product so all is good. Tell me how much you want to earn, and I can tell you which job. Finding enough people that can do the work, stay clean, pass background checks, and pass the exams is the real challenge. Keeping them from going somewhere else for a huge pay raise is another challenge. Skilled crafts are where it is at now.
$100k+
Any experience with emergency power technicians?
calteg said:AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) said:I work at a place that makes electricity. Everyone seems to love the product so all is good. Tell me how much you want to earn, and I can tell you which job. Finding enough people that can do the work, stay clean, pass background checks, and pass the exams is the real challenge. Keeping them from going somewhere else for a huge pay raise is another challenge. Skilled crafts are where it is at now.
$100k+
Any experience with emergency power technicians?
Emergency power as in lineman? Bucket truck transformer repairs? I'm in the generation side of things but if you are in distribution repair, I know a few people.
In reply to AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) :
Looking into low voltage as a possible career pivot, fire alarms, security, etc. Seeing a lot of conflicting data about pay though
I'm wondering the same thing (what's going on at work?). I'm the newest person in my group but I have the most experience. I have almost as much experience in the equivalent of my supervisor's job as he has total experience.
We've been really busy since I started, but we just gave away 2 projects we were about to start. Everyone is probably less than a month from finishing the projects they are working on. We haven't had a quarterly planning/workload meeting in over a year because of how busy things have been, so no idea what anyone will be working on next (if anything) and we usually know way ahead because of how tight the scheduling has been. So, I started asking my boss what I was going to be working on next a few weeks ago as I knew I would need something by next week. Coincidentally, I finished what I was working on Thursday.
In conversations with the boss over the past few weeks, it came out that he is doing "workforce/workflow" analysis which has not been requested by upper management in something like 20 years. From his description, this is how long should tasks take and how much production should be performed by each type and level of staff. The last time managers were asked to do this was a year or so prior to the last reorg.
On the plus side, our department at this location has traditionally had difficulty retaining personnel and I do have a lot of great experience. We are still one person short, but that position has been "frozen" so it can't be advertised or filled at this time. I believe our department's management will put up a fight to keep me if it comes to a staffing reduction. If, however, a staffing reduction occurs to our department I am 100% certain that I will be the first to go.
I specifically chose this employer due to certain benefits that would be available to me for being old enough to retire at at 10 years of service. I also considered their limited history of RIFs and recruiting challenges at several locations (including my location) as indications of employment stability in deciding to come work here over other options.
I am hoping for this to be my last stop before retiring in about 8 years, but I guess we'll see.
In reply to calteg :
There's good money in it here as long as you don't mind tunnels, trains zipping by, and the occasional rat.
calteg said:In reply to AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) :
Looking into low voltage as a possible career pivot, fire alarms, security, etc. Seeing a lot of conflicting data about pay though
I wouldn't recommend it. Although if you know of somewhere someone could make 6 figures in the field, I know a guy with 20 years experience who'd be very interested. He seemed to hit the money cap at $30/hour after multiple companies being bought out and traded around, always with horrible management that could/would never get parts or training.
calteg said:In reply to AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) :
Looking into low voltage as a possible career pivot, fire alarms, security, etc. Seeing a lot of conflicting data about pay though
No idea there. Cyber security is a rapidly growing field. I know a guy in home / business physical security systems but his wife earns a big paycheck. That's not a topic I'd normally ask.
RevRico said:calteg said:In reply to AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) :
Looking into low voltage as a possible career pivot, fire alarms, security, etc. Seeing a lot of conflicting data about pay though
I wouldn't recommend it. Although if you know of somewhere someone could make 6 figures in the field, I know a guy with 20 years experience who'd be very interested. He seemed to hit the money cap at $30/hour after multiple companies being bought out and traded around, always with horrible management that could/would never get parts or training.
I'm in the business (2 way radio, cameras, access control) and concur with this: the tech/install work will hit a cap, as companies consolidate and work gets subbed to low bidders. The cap varies, depending who you service. We're in the petrochemical space, and they pay contractors better.
Sales is a different story, though. There's tons of opportunity to make big bucks in the industry. It's hard to find good sales people who can wear several hats. The good ones make great money.
In reply to calteg :
I'm not sure if you are talking residential, commercial, or industrial side. But the VDS (voice, data, security), Fire Alarms, BMS (Building Management Systems), DCS (Process Control) Trade Partners on the high tech industrial projects seem to always be short people and even throwing decent money to bring travelers in. I know some are getting $150 / day in per diem which is pretty decent in my experience. My experience is that DCS >BMS > VDS/FA in terms of skill set required and pay. Not talking the software, automation, system integration side, that's a different animal all together.
I don't know the insides of the industry, but I know how much money I write the check out to our fire suppression company every quarter, and I'd say you should definitely do fire suppression for a living, haha. And when crap goes wrong off-hours (because it always does), their emergency service rates are near-extortion levels.
I was reminded of this by the resurgence of the Rate your job thread.
In the last two weeks the area that does the majority of the work on my shift has had nothing to do. Nothing. No machining, not a single weld, no finished product. They've moved most of the assembly area into a corner and we set that section up last week with welding machines so we can take on some custom work. The Christmas vacation is scheduled to start a week early, and go a week late, and there's plenty of speculation that not everybody will be returning.
In reply to AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) :
How's the market there for pipeline welders. My nephew is one locally and looking to move within the next couple years. I don't know if there is much of that for dam work and other power generation projects but I'm trying to show him options.
I hired 2 new guys. I was super happy about that. We actually started catching up on things.
Then one of my long-term employees turned in his two weeks' notice. Says his body can't take it anymore. He's 26. 
He just finished his notice and I've had to send someone back on about half of the calls he did. Not super happy about that. 
Still crazy busy and we are back to falling behind schedule.
Not too happy about that either.
Computer glitch just cost my department $6k. So that's cool.
We have had a few projects delayed over the past few months. Things are slow but steady.
barefootcyborg5000 said:Computer glitch just cost my department $6k. So that's cool.
"We fixed the glitch." (The two Bobs)
It should be noted that the heavy equipment we build is very niche, though to a large industry, but is also known as the best, and most rugged equipment available. And by far the most expensive.
Sales were off a little from last year, but not dramatically. We're an employee-owned coop and we're about to buy the building we're in, so that will save us a chunk of change and benefit the business. We're looking for another shipping employee as we're going to lose one soon. We just solved some major bottlenecks that were preventing us from selling some of our flagship products and got more control over the supply of a critical part by redesigning it in-house. Overall, it's going pretty well. I know this is supposed to be the doom and gloom thread, but turns out there's still demand for good product and good support.
Average time in service for our 18-ish employees: 9.9 years. So it's obviously not a terrible place to work :)
Keith Tanner said:I know this is supposed to be the doom and gloom thread,
It's not.
We are experiencing a serious slowdown. I wondered if it was the same elsewhere
Peabody said:
I work for a major heavy equipment manufacturer and it started slowing down in summer. At the time they said, everything's OK, business as usual, nothing to see here, and now a few months later it's really slow. This company is great, and treats their employees very well. Considering how slow it was, we could have seen some serious layoffs, but didn't. Now it's starting.
Just wondering, what are you seeing? Slow? Layoffs?
Ups and downs, overall things with the company are pretty good. I just wish I was catching on to the job quicker, enjoying it more, and feeling more confident. Pretty terrible time for my mental health to have taken a nosedive. Probably going to be looking for a new job soon, whether because I need to or because I'm just not digging this one remains to be seen. And it ain't nobody's fault but mine... Well, that is not entirely true, but it is definitely not the fault of anyone at the company.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
Are you guys looking for a PT remote social media manager?
bmw88rider said:In reply to AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) :
How's the market there for pipeline welders. My nephew is one locally and looking to move within the next couple years. I don't know if there is much of that for dam work and other power generation projects but I'm trying to show him options.
I'm going to break silence to respond to this. If your nephew can do ASME code level welds the prospects are good IMO. All nuke plants are working on license extensions, some are working on restarting after being shutdown and interest in new nuclear technology is high right now. A good pipeline welder should be able to learn and weld to ASME code easily or different sections of their standards.
And again... I was reminded of this by the tech layoffs thread.
Still really slow here, we had almost a month shutdown at Christmas and got news this week, along with another handful of layoffs, that they're shutting down for March break. This company is great, it's amazing we haven't all been laid off yet, and they're scheduling shutdowns so people are able to spend time with their families.
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