been there....
been there....
I was a navy ET and got out in 2001 for similar reasons. I still miss the life overseas and underway. Man, I've seen alot since then. The first year I got out I spent working 2 jobs and trying to go to school. The economic slump hit hard and the better jobs were only in the lower $20 range.
Truth is, you don't have the 'working' knowledge of wiring to make it on the outside yet, BUT the navy teaches the technical theory behind electricity and most importantly HOW to figure out new things quickly, which sets us apart. Navy guys are in high demand as manufacturing plant and large hospital maintenance types. The Operating Engineers have a classification called 'Stationary Engineer' which is just like an A-ganger but with included electrical side e.g. motors, controls, fire alarm, etc. Those guys do all maintenance, troubleshooting, repair, operation, and calibration. No new installs, if a maintenance guy, no matter HOW sophisticated, does a new install of anything, be cautious, and curious, because seeing their 'NEW' work can provide for good laughs.
Maintenance guys all work for the 'owner' and have all the keys, prints, and knowledge of the facility. They are 'lower' in the grand scheme of things, but in their own facility they are 'above' the General Contractor's Superintendint. I shouldn't say 'they' because there are only a few of the building engineers who see the big picture and run the show, the rest are just pee-ons and turds. I'm not talking about janitors or residential maintenance guys here, I'm talking about high-rise buildings, hospitals, coliseums, convention centers, and what-not. There will be 300 ads for a maintenance man in the paper and only 3 will be these jobs. The only way in is to have either prior navy experience, or come from a service job at an electrical or mechanical contractor. I know all this terminology is somewhat new to you, so mechanical means things like boilers, compressors, refrigeration, pumps, fan units, valves, plumbing, and so on. Electrical is things like the distribution, fire alarm, motors, controls, voice/data, and almost every system is a combo of the two. Downside to being a facilities maintenance guy: small community (don't burn bridges,) same facility every day no change except when an addition is built or remodel, navy guys usually get along but most facilities guys are a-holes from working with the same guys for 20 years. The new guy ends up on swing shift or graveyard until a newer guy comes. Upside: very technical but physically easy work, not too dirty except punching tubes on the boiler and rebuilding pumps, interesting, tons of paid vacation more than makes up for the $2-3 an hour less in wage, usually comes with great retirement and benefits, on-call for emergencies usually pays a few dollars an hour all thru the night and weekend not to mention the OT, everybody is happy to see you if you have good customer service mentality.
There are manufacturing plant electricians, here in Oregon, who do new installs of smaller jobs in the facility and are very sophisticated with the large DC motors, substation operation, the 4160V motors, and PLC's VFD's, but they don't install the larger projects. I might be scorned for saying this but they are very similar to the maintenance guy I described except they don't do any mechanical eqpt service and focus even broader and greater on the electrical side. In a larger plant the mechanical side is picked up by pipe fitters, you don't want a maintenance guy playing around with hydro-fluoric acid systems. The bonus to being a manufacturing plant electrician here, I've heard but never been one is: shut-downs. Shut downs happen over the holidays when production personnel are all at home and the plant is torn apart for rebuilds and preventive maintenance. Its like going to the yards but having it compressed. Some plant electricians rake in enough overtime to haul in 6-figures, I seriously doubt that will happen in florida though, this is hi-tech and steel related stuff.
Now for the actual Electrician stuff, man, I wouldn't trade this job for anything, except maybe another maintenance job when I get old and ready to take it easy. I've been non-union and union. And I would not be an electrician in a right-to-work state, it just doesn't pay enough to live on. If any moderators edit this post you are cutting out a vital point of honesty for this here fellow. 9 out of 10 electricians are easy to get along with. Some older guys, known as 'screamers' they just make me laugh, even the hard asses are nothing compared to what we've been thru. Everybody works hard, because if you don't, you're down the road, thats not true in a maintenance job. There comes satisfaction from watching a building, whether it be a 2200SF home someone will live in or a glorified remodel at a plant where silicon wafers are made, change as it is worked on and completed. There is a method to the madness, truthfully, there is only one way to adequately, profitably, and efficiently install electrical products, and it will provide you great satisfaction to try and find it. My motto is, 'Its my job to make a profitable install for the contractor, end if story.' That doesn't mean you should work for free as well though, just make an effort to use your smarts to become faster and faster. This job is equal portions of technical skill and production skill. Production skill is things like putting things together in batches, going up and down the ladder once not 5 times, counting out parts you need to do something once, making sure all the parts are there and staying in the spot until the install is complete, not running all over the job, it goes on and on and it is not in any books but great advice can be found on this site. If you decide to enter this trade and want to learn and work hard, you will never know the unemployment line. Working hard does not mean chugging two rockstars every morning and working for 10 and calling it 8, there are some unscrupulous employers out there who take advantage but they are not the norm. If you do choose this direction, make sure to wire a few houses, get on at a non-union shop for a while, its great to see how they do business, but know that there are far more ex-navy types on the union side. Just so you know, the journeyman wage here is $33 an hour with no money coming out of the check for health benefits. The company I work at makes money hand over fist, not because the electricians are that much better, but because the management is so much better. The retirement is without comparison, and held such that something like enron doesn't happen. Well, thats my 2 cents, and I'm sure everyone else will chime in.
