Tycho
15-09-2007, 02:46 AM
For me... My uncle works as an electrical engineer on supply ships for the oilindustry, and he just happened to be home from work at the time I finished my school year of machining and mechanical work.
I was fresh out of ideas of what I wanted to do with my life, I had read the pamplet of what I could continue my education to, and excavator operator didnt quite catch my fancy.
My uncle kept talking about these refrigeration guys, making money out of their arses doing little or no work :) so I checked it out and got the papers sent to me at school (had to special order them as people normaly didnt apply for this "Highly specialized trade")
I applied for "Basic class refrigeration" and got accepted... I spent 1 year calculating Q=m*c*AT and all that, soldered up a small copper plant and got the basic knowledge of electrics. midway through the school year we spent one week at a company in a sort of "get to know the trade" kinda thing, a company specialicing in supermarkets took me in, and after the third day of having old ladies rolling their carts over my legs as I was working on cooling displays I knew that I wanted to go bigger (I reasoned that these ladies had gone this way since 1945 and wouldnt let a pair of legs stop them from doing ther shopping), but still I wanted more... so they took me to a longliner where the old man of the company had to change a piece of pipe, he had me insulate a plate heat exchanger... he was brazing close to the floor while I was insulating close to the roof. the smoke from the brazing wasnt all that bad to breath in at the time, I managed to finish the insulating job before I had to go land side... I was walking back and forth on the quay coughing my lungs out... had to move around to get fresh air. at the time I thought it was from the oily smoke (one time deal I thought) I went back onboard, and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, my eyes were silver colored...
Still I think nothing of it and go help him finish.
When I finish my one week at this company I find that I want more, and for my apprentice ship I apply for a position in Kvaerner (big in industrial refrigeration) and get the job, after less than one week there I am taught he dangers of fosgen.
I guess the companies working on larger systems where soldering and fosgen is not really an issue teach more safety on it than the smaller ones who can get exposed to it every day.
Anyways... I have stayed in the same company for over 11 years now, come hell or high water...
there have been downtimes when I have looked for other jobs... Being a refrigeration techician/engineer (or Senior Supervisor as I am called now) I have qualifications withing most fields of mechanical work, I can program PLC's, I can program HMI's (human machine interfaces or touch displays), I can fault seek most electrical circuits... but my only paper of education says I'm a refrigeration engineer... so all my other accumulated knowledge doesnt matter :)
Dontcha just love this job :)
The last three years I have been looking for something else, something where I can maintain the pay level but work less, but everytime I find something, my "work experience" doesnt matter, only my education and what papers I can show... but also every time I find something appealing I think to myself "What other job has the same challenging work day, what other job gives you the variety of problems, what other job gives you the opportunity to run your own workday like this one"
I usualy come half way through my resume before I bin it and remember that there is no job in the world that can give yoyu this kind of diversity...
Monday from morning to lunch I can be programming a PLC and after lunch me and a co-worker are working on three - four pulleys/tackles to take out a compressor :) what kind of job gives you that?
I love my Job
I was fresh out of ideas of what I wanted to do with my life, I had read the pamplet of what I could continue my education to, and excavator operator didnt quite catch my fancy.
My uncle kept talking about these refrigeration guys, making money out of their arses doing little or no work :) so I checked it out and got the papers sent to me at school (had to special order them as people normaly didnt apply for this "Highly specialized trade")
I applied for "Basic class refrigeration" and got accepted... I spent 1 year calculating Q=m*c*AT and all that, soldered up a small copper plant and got the basic knowledge of electrics. midway through the school year we spent one week at a company in a sort of "get to know the trade" kinda thing, a company specialicing in supermarkets took me in, and after the third day of having old ladies rolling their carts over my legs as I was working on cooling displays I knew that I wanted to go bigger (I reasoned that these ladies had gone this way since 1945 and wouldnt let a pair of legs stop them from doing ther shopping), but still I wanted more... so they took me to a longliner where the old man of the company had to change a piece of pipe, he had me insulate a plate heat exchanger... he was brazing close to the floor while I was insulating close to the roof. the smoke from the brazing wasnt all that bad to breath in at the time, I managed to finish the insulating job before I had to go land side... I was walking back and forth on the quay coughing my lungs out... had to move around to get fresh air. at the time I thought it was from the oily smoke (one time deal I thought) I went back onboard, and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, my eyes were silver colored...
Still I think nothing of it and go help him finish.
When I finish my one week at this company I find that I want more, and for my apprentice ship I apply for a position in Kvaerner (big in industrial refrigeration) and get the job, after less than one week there I am taught he dangers of fosgen.
I guess the companies working on larger systems where soldering and fosgen is not really an issue teach more safety on it than the smaller ones who can get exposed to it every day.
Anyways... I have stayed in the same company for over 11 years now, come hell or high water...
there have been downtimes when I have looked for other jobs... Being a refrigeration techician/engineer (or Senior Supervisor as I am called now) I have qualifications withing most fields of mechanical work, I can program PLC's, I can program HMI's (human machine interfaces or touch displays), I can fault seek most electrical circuits... but my only paper of education says I'm a refrigeration engineer... so all my other accumulated knowledge doesnt matter :)
Dontcha just love this job :)
The last three years I have been looking for something else, something where I can maintain the pay level but work less, but everytime I find something, my "work experience" doesnt matter, only my education and what papers I can show... but also every time I find something appealing I think to myself "What other job has the same challenging work day, what other job gives you the variety of problems, what other job gives you the opportunity to run your own workday like this one"
I usualy come half way through my resume before I bin it and remember that there is no job in the world that can give yoyu this kind of diversity...
Monday from morning to lunch I can be programming a PLC and after lunch me and a co-worker are working on three - four pulleys/tackles to take out a compressor :) what kind of job gives you that?
I love my Job