Re: OT: Value of an industrial electrician apprenticeship



Watch out for the politics of the situation. Your "pushing" may not be appreciated by your seniors. If it makes them look bad, they have ways of taking care of you.
If this is, as it sounds, a union job, this suggestion may not work, but: See what additional education your company will support. Even if they dont' offer anything, you might decide to go to night school to get a degree as befits your desires. That sure will take the boredom out life for a while. Then,if you are waiting at the bottom of the ladder while the light bulb is changed, you can always do some homework.

Don't blow it in the interpersonal communications area, unless you've got a south Pacific Island someplace to live.
Actually, now that I've said that, DO study interpersonal relationships. Understanding how and why the other guy thinks and does is key to success in any position.

Pete Stanaitis
--------------

Nathan Weber wrote:

I'm a young guy trying to figure out the best course of action for my
future. I recently ( 8 months) started as an Electrical and
Instrumentation apprentice at a paper mill and so far it doesn't seem to
be all it's talked up to be.

I left my last job as an Automation Technician mainly because I was
bored. I was hired on as an Assistant, trained for 2 months on first
shift then was moved to 3rd shift where I was by my self. After 3
months on 3rd, I was promoted to an Auto tech and by my one year
anniversary I was supporting the automation department by my self with
an acceptable amount of downtime. I was starting to get bored around
this time due to the fact that troubleshooting the machines we had was
not much of a challenge anymore and I felt that I was beginning to
stagnate. I started looking and was accepted into the apprenticeship
thinking that with the amount and complexity of machinery that a paper
mill has, it would be a long time before I was bored.

As an Auto tech, I had a lot of responsibility. I kept the machines
running, modified the machines to make them run better, I did a lot of
machining and some Autocad work. I could pretty much talk over an idea
with the senior techs, come up with a plan of action, design/machine the
parts I needed then implement the idea. If the part was too complex for
us to machine, I could drop off a print and have the parts I needed in a
week or two. I was very aggressive and would jump into any problem,
never saying " I can't do that or I've never been trained to do that"

Here is my dilemma, It doesn't look like I will ever do any of that, nor
will I ever throughout my apprenticeship. I get the feeling that many
of the people I work with don't really understand the machines they are
working on and get the attitude that if they don't understand what it
does, they are not going to bother to learn and I'm certainly not going
to be digging around it. I've been there 8 months so far and have
graduated from holding a ladder for someone changing a light fixture to
changing the light fixture my self, that's it. I try to push these guys
but the harder I push, the harder they push back.

Everyone is telling me that once I complete this, I will be able to go
anywhere. I certainly do not want to short my self in the future but
this seems like it is a step backward.

Thanks,
Nate
.



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