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Next week I'm going to take a 6 week course to learn how to operate heavy construction machinery.  What I want to know from you honorable Goon Types is ... well, what's it like? Do you usually stick to one machine? Or Multiples? Do you really sit around half the day, take lunch, move the machines around a couple times, then do a bit of work before knocked off for the day? Does some certificate from some school in New Hampshire give me a better chance to get a job? Do you usually do construction near where you live? Or is there some travel involved? What's the coolest thing you've worked on? Am I a fool for even considering this?
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Feb 5, 2015 07:04
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| # ? May 4, 2024 21:01 |
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The whole "screw around all day and move a few things" is in all likelyhood a total lie. There are highly skilled (e.g. crane operators) or union gigs that are like that, but those also take years of experience to get. I'm assuming that you have minimal construction experience since you don't already know this. It doesn't mean that career path is an all around bad idea. However, a simple six week course will do you no good if you don't have any experience. Nobody who's worth working for would put you in a machine with only a course under your belt. Maybe a mini. A better bet, if this is your long term plan, would be to get your CDL and look for jobs in the construction industry. 40 hour HAZWOPER is also good for environmental but most employers will pay for this if you land a job. Make it known you would like to become an operator. Get experience, then go from there. I would say the course is a poor investment overall, but I just work with construction crews, not on them. Maybe I'm wrong, but I've never heard of a guy coming in fresh with only some private cert and getting put in a machine.
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Feb 6, 2015 13:28
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Well, to be fair, the "Screw around all day" was a joke, I get that that's likely to not be something that happens all that often. And that's all mostly what I kinda figured. My GI Bill is paying for it at least, so I'm not terribly worried about it. As for the certificate getting me a job, I figure it might help about as much as my CAD degree has given me.
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Feb 6, 2015 19:50
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I've worked both civil construction (dirt work, building pads, road building, etc, etc) and industrial construction (mostly running a Lull forklift). Most of my experience is operating machines and working with other operators. That being said, all of my training has been mostly informal and some extent of "Get on it and figure it out." Also I have typically worked on smaller crews where everybody needed to be able to run everything with some degree of competence. I'll try to tell you a little about operation and construction work in general. Do you usually stick to one machine? Or Multiples? It depends on the project. Most projects will require you to be able to run any equipment on site to receive full operator pay. You may have to load a dump truck with an excavator, get out and climb in the truck, go dump, come back with and empty truck and repeat the process. It's best to at least have a clue how do the basics with all of the machines on site so that you can work in conjunction with other operators. If you know how the other machines work, you can anticipate your buddy's next move on his machine. Do you really sit around half the day, take lunch, move the machines around a couple times, then do a bit of work before knocked off for the day? Very rarely. It does happen. But not often. Nobody likes an operator that stays on his machine and never gets off to help somebody do some grunt work. And there is ALWAYS some grunt work to be done. However, there's a lot of red tape associated with construction jobs and and sometimes the job is pretty much stalled due to such. Usually you take that time to grease your machine, maybe clean the windows, bullshit with the guys, hide, whatever. Sometimes the work can be very monotonous. I once spent 2 weeks driving an offroad dump truck about 300 yards from an onsite gravel pit to where the dirt was needed on a road bed. Around 75 times a day. Luckily the guy loading me in the gravel pit took pity on me and we'd swap machines for a while to break it up. Usually you wind up doing what you are best at. He was better at running the excavator and I was a better truck driver so we'd stick to our strong points most of the time. Does some certificate from some school in New Hampshire give me a better chance to get a job? I'm not sure, since all of my training has been *highly* informal. It would probably net you more money once you did land a job, though. Do you usually do construction near where you live? Or is there some travel involved? I live in south Alabama, so most of my work has been in the southeast. The furthest away I've had to work is South Carolina. In construction, once you get your foot in the door, you'll hear guys say once they "get done with this bullshit job, I'm headed to (bumfuck Egypt) to make some REAL money". You'll go through a LOT of co-workers. Some cool and laid back as hell, and some assholes. The assholes are usually the ones with the magical "next job" and you see em again 6 months down the line because that job didn't work out. You have be careful about what you listen to on a job site. The bosses are who you need to ask about upcoming projects and whats going on with the company. Most are very cool about letting you know what's up. What's the coolest thing you've worked on? I always thought that a Lull (telescopic forklift) was one of the coolest machines. Not a whole lot of "cool" factor but just because it is so versatile. Offroad 6x6 dump trucks are cool too. They can pretty much go anywhere within reason. Trees? Not a problem. Mud? Even better. Am I a fool for even considering this? Construction can be a lucrative job, but you have to travel a lot to keep money rolling in. You may spend 6 months on a project and when it finishes up, you may be traveling across the country for another job or spending the next couple months drawing unemployment. Having side work you can do at home helps. A lot of people switch back and forth between 2 or 3 companies they work for. If you're single, it can be a pretty sweet deal. But if you have wife/girlfriend/family, it can complicate things in a hurry. The distance and time away from home is very hard on a relationship. It seems like people early in their marriages struggle the most. Most of the older guys that work construction have been married and divorced at least a couple times. Drug and alcohol abuse is pretty rampant among construction workers as well, and you will be asked to loan somebody money at some point in time. I've always been VERY careful about who I loaned money to and never had any trouble getting back. But that's a personal thing. Usually, working a tough schedule (my last job was 42 days in a row of 12 hour night shifts) makes for a pretty strong camaraderie among your crew in a short amount of time though. Your work crew becomes you new family for the duration of a job. People that don't get along with others usually get weeded out pretty quick. When things are going good, the work is borderline fun. When they're bad, sometimes it'll take all the willpower you have not to quit. One of the times I had the most fun at work in my life was driving a Lull for a crew with a radio on bungie strapped to the roll cage with Guns n' Roses blasting wide open and a dozen people jamming to Paradise City. Another tidbit that people generally don't think about with operating machinery, is that it can be an extremely stressful job...at times. If you have a suspended load and you have people all around, you have to be EXTREMELY careful and have your head on a swivel because the worst possible scenario results in somebody getting hurt. If it ever comes between damaging multimillion dollar equipment or somebody getting hurt, the equipment is getting smashed every time and you can deal with the bosses later. Wow. I didn't plan on such a long post. I guess it should be noted that I am not currently working construction, but am using a lot of skills that I learned in construction in my current work. Not so much machine operation as much as applying the same principles like troubleshooting and maintenance. It's a lot like riding a bike though, if you do it for a while and decide you don't like it, you can go do something else and have that skill in your back pocket for if you ever need it. Hope this helps!
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Feb 7, 2015 06:30
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Thanks for that, it's very informative. And honestly, it kinda lines up with what I was thinking. Travel's not an issue for me, I'm single and have been living with my mother for much longer than I originally planned after getting out of the Army. So, I'm pretty sure she'd love for me to get the hell out. TheMonkeyHunter posted:What's the coolest thing you've worked on? 6x6 Dump Trucks are seriously cool to see driving around sometimes, though there aren't many in Oklahoma. I have some Forklift experience from a previous job and I like driving them around.
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Feb 7, 2015 07:36
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| # ? May 4, 2024 21:01 |
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Coolest job? That's a tough one. All them have their perks and drawbacks. My favorite job was probably the last time I went to South Carolina for a 6 week power plant shutdown operating a Lull. Night shift. No days off. It sucked the first few days getting used to being up and working all night, but then once that wore off it wound up being pretty slick. The plant had around 300 full time people working days...and 10 people ran it at night. And then there we were. For most of the duration, our crew had around 35 people. My company was the only contractor working at night, so there was no problem with being crowded by other contractors. Better yet, the big bosses for my company worked during the day, so no hassle there. So we had a night shift project manager and a general foreman. It was super laid back...most of the time. I spent most of the time running around with the Lull and doing whatever had to be done, but toward the end of the job, we finished all of the ground work and all of the work was on top of the unit we were working on, about 7 stories up. Which pretty much meant I had nothing to do, which is never a good thing for a boss to see. So I started going around and asking people if they needed any help with whatever was going on, I wound up doing everything from sweeping to rolling up extension cords to being the "hold this while I weld it" man. The bosses never had to give me anything to do and it was awesome. We had cookouts every Saturday night for lunch and usually at least once more during the week. I mean cooking hamburgers, hotdogs, and sausage for 30 people. Sometimes we'd all throw in and order enough fried chicken to shut down a KFC. It was one of the only jobs I've been on that I felt like had really good leadership from the bosses, even though I didn't ever have to deal with them a whole lot. At the meeting at the beginning of the shift, the general foreman would tell me "go do whatever it is you do". And for the most part there wasn't any in-crew drama, which is almost always an issue on a job site. Also, it did help that my dad was there working too, so I didn't show up on the job not knowing a soul, which happened to me several times. Also, if you seriously get into construction work as a career, I'd recommend looking into getting a camper and a full sized pickup truck to pull it with. It really pays off on jobs lasting more than a couple weeks. Not just financially, but because living in a hotel room for over a month sucks big time. Usually there will be a camper park within 30 minutes of a big job site. They tend to spring up when big construction projects are announced.
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Feb 7, 2015 09:26
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