lineman job shadow

    This post is going to be about the job shadow I had a little after the first post, the job shadow I had took place in downtown Seattle with my cousin Jared Grubb, he's been a lineman for 3 years and is just about a journeyman worker, they were working on the new subway station that is being built, there were a ton of other workers there including drywallers, electricians, basic construction work, people that companies flew from Texas just to make sure there product was installed correctly so they can back it up with their warranty. Then there are the lineman they were not actually working on power poles they were in the station working on the super high voltage wires that are used to power the trains and the station and the electricians would power all that energy into smaller amounts for like computers, lights and outlets. When I got there, there wasn't much going on they were just finishing up the work, grounding the wires making sure everything was right on this like multi million dollar project. I don't know much of what they were actually doing because it's a bunch of words I don't know and torque wrenching stuff, but what I did notice and understand was they all knew what was going on and it's a small group of workers working with a journeyman lineman and they all knew each other and were super cool. Here are some pictures I took of what they were doing. Look how huge those wires are and good damn they are heavy, and I got to see that under the station and there's just tons of feet of it. The picture of the fans were the transformers of the stations and I believe there were 4 of them. Thank you for reading !!

 

lineman post 5

    So Id say we have a basic idea of what this job involves but im sure there's lots more to learn about this job, but using what we gathered let's talk advantages and disadvantages of this job let's start with the disadvantages of this job. First of all this job isn't going to be a walk in the park. Expect to come to work, wake up early, work long hours, work on weekends, and bust your ass all the time personally this is just what I like I've always done hard labor no matter if its mowing lawns when I was a kid in the heat of the summer or polishing stone in the freezing cold weather, and that's why I joined the army to give me more of a new standard for myself because at times I feel myself start slipping and getting a little lazy so this should reform me and prepare me for my career. Another disadvantage is the moving around and if you have a wife and a kid it may get a little tricky with your wife always bitching about how she doesn't want to live in a 5th that moves around for ever and all that bull shit, but as I said in my earlier blogs this should only last for about 3 to 5 years or however long it takes you to finish your apprenticeship. Advantages include something new on the job everyday and the pay is awesome, bad ass work Id feel like Id wake up everyday and love what I do for a job and that to me is worth way more than the pay. Let's also talk training/ education for this job so you don't need ANY education after high school and honestly you don't even need a diploma but it is definitely recommended, so if you'd like to be a lineman you got to get into a line school and do an apprenticeship threw them.

(WOIS)

Lineman post 4

    This blog post is going to go deeper into work settings and conditions, pay ranges and employment outlook…

    Being a lineman you need a wide variety of skills like teamwork and customer skills so being able to communicate is key!! In any job you will have to work with people you really don't like and you just have to power through it and keep working on the same team not against. Often work outside sometimes with extreme heat or cold so be ready for that but sometimes inside so just be prepared for any environment. Obviously you will be working around hazardous conditions like cranes setting poles and live power. Let's hope your not afraid of heights because as a apprentice you will need to climb poles 60 ft or higher and later 200 ft+ towers. Your work must be perfect and exact as if it's not your work may be seriously dangerous to others. But don't let any of that scare you let's talk pay, I live in Washington so I will post a chart of the average pay in my area as well as the US average.

Location	Pay Period
		10%	25%	Median	75%	90%
Washington	Hourly	$29.10	$40.01	$44.35	$47.81	$50.29
	Monthly	$5,043	$6,934	$7,686	$8,285	$8,715
	Yearly	$60,519	$83,232	$92,243	$99,429	$104,598

United States	Hourly	$17.60	$24.43	$32.70	$39.73	$47.21
	Monthly	$3,050	$4,234	$5,667	$6,885	$8,181
	Yearly	$36,610	$50,820	$68,010	$82,640	$98,190

Pay looks pretty damn sweet to me, now looks look at employment outlook.

Location	Current employment	Growth over 10 years
		This occupation	All occupations
Washington	1,842	12.9%	16.7%

United States

118,600

11.0%

6.5%

As you can see there are plenty of jobs available, but don't let that make you think that they will hire just anyone because this is a super competitive career to get into.

http://www.picgran.com/edit.php

lineman 3rd post

Source of picture (NBC 4 news)

    All the time there are power outages no matter where you are for any range of reasons from a tree falling on a wire or a fire at an electrical station all of which will demand lineman. Apart from all the other things that makes this not your typical job a lot of the time you are required to travel to sites especially just starting out in a apprenticeship program, for instance according to NBC 4 news

   AEP Ohio is sending 14 line workers to Puerto Rico on Saturday to assist with power restoration efforts. The team will join four storm restoration experts with AEP Ohio, who have been on the ground since early January. Line workers from AEP Ohio’s sister companies will also join the mission.

    You may be told to travel out of state to go work on a site with a range of many other workers for months at a time sometimes, My cousin who is a lineman said that once you finish your apprenticeship then you could start settling down and you can start picking where you want to go for work. Most people that try and get a job as a lineman don't want to travel and end up wasting a lot of time trying to get a job around them and sometimes this takes years, so I'd say suck it up and take the three years you need to take to become a journeyman and travel to where they need you to go. My cousin has a truck and a camper and he's using that at the moment to get to the sites and he just bought a house for his wife and kids because he's just about a journeyman. Don't let this slip you up from becoming a lineman from what I've learned this is a fun profession with helicopters being used to pick tools up and bring them to the top of a tower or hanging from a ladder attached to a helicopter (video is coming next post). Plus the pay is pretty damn good of course.

lineman post 2

 

   

High voltage. 2018. Downtown subway(Julian Cross)

 

 What exactly is a lineman some of you may ask and what do they other than just fix power lines/install them? That is what I will be informing you about in this post!

So a lineman not only climb poles and fix power lines and install them but they also install lines under ground, as well tower work too, they also use a huge variety of heavy equipment like teachers( to dig a trench of course), cable plows to make way for underground cables and a bunch of other fun tools that you won't be using in any other job. Line installers will also do private work as well connecting a line between the power grid and a set house, warehouse or anything else that needs a line connected. They also repair power lines. Say a storm came and knocked out a power line cutting power to 15,000 customers a lineman would be there as fast as possible fixing that so everyone won't have to sleep in the dark. On that note there is a special season called storm season where you may make up to double pay because of the storms!! There are a lot more duties that this profession performs but I think those are the main ones given for a day to day work as a lineman(Wois). I talked to a lineman about his job and he said two quotes one being “identify, Isolate, test and ground” which is what you must do if your installing wire, fixing wire, working on a transmission tower… and the second quote is “look up and live” which makes sense because this is a very dangerous job, messing with enough electricity to kill ten horses in sometimes dangerous conditions (Cross).  The next post will be coming next week, so stick around!!

 

Intro to my blog

(s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/lineman.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/02051727/10.jpg.)



https://lineman.edu/ (picture source)

Was good I'm doing a school project and have to research and talk about my career interest in this blog. For a career field I'm in the process of pursuing being a lineman( power line, high voltage) I always thought it would be dope as hell to work on power lines when the weather is really coming down and some trees fell on it, I also want to do this as a career because I'm a hands on person and can't be stuck behind a desk for 12 hours a day, another reason why I would like to pursue this career is because I got family that are linemen and I am not going to lie like they can make bank.

For this blog I'm going to talk about the process I'm taking to get to my goal as a lineman, what you need to do to become a lineman, what being a lineman looks like(I have an upcoming job shadow so I should have a really good idea), pay, benefits, daily life, Schedule.... As for the amount of posting I'm going to be doing. I will probably put up one post a week for 10 weeks then this class is over and I doubt i'll ever post again. This is going to be just as informational for you as it is for me because I'm going to go see what happens on the job of an actual lineman and ask him questions instead of just looking this stuff up. If you also want to find out about the army i'll put that information and steps I've taken for that in here to because it is one of the things I'm doing in my life to become a lineman. So sit back and enjoy my blog and journey i’m taking to follow my career.