Most companies would prefer to hire apprentices and train them rather that to have to retrain someone. A weather event would nix that off week but every callout week was not always busy either. The off week usually had a 3 day weekend. Most companies rotate the callout schedule. And maintained a decent lifestyle along the way. Or on some of those beautiful Spring or Fall days.I was also paid fairly well for it and earned a comfortable retirement.
Every late night callout was an adventure and I loved being in the country at night. I worked in the rural and I loved being in the country. And if any of those 8 hours off were during regular work hours we got paid for them!īut its not all bad. Ours was 16 and then you were required to have 8 hours off. Most companies and OHSA have limits on the number of hours that you can work in a day. Those hours were at all times of day and night and in all kinds of weather. I can't tell you the number of birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, kids ballgames, ect that I missed. It takes a mature and dedicated spouse to deal with it. Some calm years were as low as 300 or so and a few went to 1000. Most of those last 25 years I averaged 600 hours overtime a year. The last 25 I was a Serviceman, or some call a troubleshooter. I retired after nearly 35 years as a Lineman. It might take 3 hours if you did an old school cone style instead of capacitive grading but nobody has done those in over a decade once capacitive grading came along.far fewer failures. I honestly don't know how it could take that long. They told me they contract out terminations and their contractor takes all day. Had them done in 45 minutes then they wanted our contact info so we could do riser terminations for them. You get all kinds of goofy situations on the fringes too, like when I had to beg a local coop for permission to enter their sub and reterminate 3 shielded cables that another contractor messed up (no terminations at all). Again as others have said there's a lot of different jobs within the industry.
There's also tower work which is pretty specialized, ,ind of a mix of the two. The only other big industries if you want to call it that is telephone and cable. A few companies, mostly mines, have a large amount of their own lines and their own linemen. The 20 somethings eventually find easier work and leave before they hit 40 or the work is hard but they're paid well and reasonable so they stay.Ĭlick to expand.Generally other than utility contractor vs. If you got guys on the crew that are in their 40s, you will work hard but you re going to work reasonable. If your crew is all 20 somethings and half of them have alimony payments, you will work to death. It gets harder as you get older so you get smarter. They think you're just an animal and you can and should put out at 12-14 hours per day, every day, 7 days a week. Some supers understand this and look out for the company which means they get the most out of you, so they also look out for you. You can do a little more if you're doing a strong back/weak mind job like holding the stop/slow sign all day long. AND you can't put out like that for more than 2-3 days in a row. Realistically on most hands on jobs or heavy head game jobs (troubleshooting) you slow down after 8 hours and you're worthless after 12 hours. The only limit on hours is physically how much your body and mind can actually take. What there is to do (hookers, drinking, drugs) mostly just gets you in trouble so you might as well just work anyways so it keeps you from getting bored and getting into trouble. There's not much to do when you're out of your area other than eat, sleep, work. The job turns more into what you see for schedules for construction with a big project that is way behind with guys that are working out of hotels. They work 12 hour days for say 6 days straight or maybe 3 weeks at a time with a week returning home.
LINEMAN JUMPING LINE FULL
Government operations and certain industries where uptime is critical (paper mills, power plants, glass plants) or political (municipals) tend towards full staffing while most private companies run understaffed and try to contract out for minor events.Īfter a big "event" when it's a disaster situation like the hurricane in Florida some crews are STILL down there from all over the country. At times depending on how well they staff for emergencies the normal times can be busy and the overtime insane or the normal times can be outright boring and overtime frustrating but at least you're doing something. Click to expand.All "maintenance" jobs have very unpredictable schedules.
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