you're welcome :) My recent GA's have mainly been centered around celebrating my recent electrician apprenticeship that I spent the last several months fighting for (since over the summer and a bit of spring essentially, applied and then had to go thru a bunch of testing and interviews with corpo, union, etc.). Since I landed it some weeks ago last month I've now been steady working my ass off and even pulled in to overtime on weekends to get training hours done n such faster. The whole thing got pretty competitive as a bunch of us were competing for 2 positions. Fortunately I smashed all my tests and dunked on the final interview, which I was pretty proud of accomplishing(tend to be pretty hard on myself so this was a pleasant result this time). I also really wanted to give back to the community here since all the great vibes and generosity helped me thru some low points over the last couple years and now that I'm in a position to do so and it happens to be the holidays I've been trying to pick up some fun keys in between obligations if I'm not totally wore out. I just found out at the end of my shift yesterday that I will be signing my apprenticeship contract in a few hours after I finish my L3 crane training in the morn(uhg has that been a brain drain the last 3 days. I can bust ass no problem but being trapped in a room listening to someone read thru powerpoints while reading training books for 8 hrs straight starts to do me in :p ). Not rly something I'll prolly ever actually end up doing, save for maybe if I'm doing some repairs and there's somehow no other more qualified operators around...but certs are certs and if they rly wanna blow the money on it for me I'm not going to complain(not sure cost off hand but I know is quite a pretty penny for each of us to do it). It's all coming together nicely :) Heading out in a few mins for work now but when I get back home I think I might have to find another GA to do for this contracts signing celebration since that quite a big deal for me. Employment and union contracts already signed but now this one finalizes the apprenticeship so I can log my hours toward what I need to complete that over the next 4 years to get my journeyman's card. Will be locked in for another 4 to work off the schooling unless I breach early and just pay them off. That's a while down the road tho.

5 years ago

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Timobkg

being trapped in a room listening to someone read thru powerpoints while reading training books for 8 hrs straight starts to do me in

That does sound awful. I think I may have some sort of sleep disorder, since right now I can't take more than 10 minutes of something like that before struggling to stay awake, so 8 hours sounds like a nightmare.

Anyway, that's awesome! Congratulations! You should feel really proud! So it's 4 years to go from apprentice to journeyman? And would you be locked in at the same company?

5 years ago

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Noctuabundus

I have a problem like that when going somewhere in a car if it takes more than an hour and I'm not the one driving. It ends up being a titanic battle of attrition between the last shreds of my willpower and my brain's insistence to go into standby mode. If there is something to stay occupied with it def helps but even then it can quickly become a futile endeavor. Then I just end up feeling like an asshole cuz I'm not doing my part to help keep the driver from being consumed by mind numbing doldrums. On the other hand if I'm the driver, I'm totally fine driving forever in silence or otherwise ¯_(ツ)_/¯.

Yeah I'll be contracted in with the same company since they will be footing the bill in the mean time and then I'm basically paying them back by taking a pay cut. but my wage will increase by a dollar every 1000 hours. They also supplied me with a really awesome big rolling toolbox and a bunch of relevant tools to start with until I collect all of the other things that I will need as well. About every other week I've been turning in order forms to request various tools that I need to eventually acquire. I've basically been told by people there to get it in while the gettin's good since after the apprenticeship it become more of a fight if I want to order something then. They know that I will need all these other more esoteric things beyond my basic starting set as I go along and determine what works best for me and how I want to handle things. I try not to be too greedy if I can find reasonable options while still maintaining a certain level of quality to my choices, however some things are just expensive as hell and there's not much else to do about it. Kinda neat because I'm getting lots of cool toys that I know I wouldn't otherwise justify affording on my own dollar but since they get more efficient productivity out of me and such with these investments I'm able to splurge on a few quality of life enhancements here and there :) After I complete my contract all of my tools are mine as well so if I decide to just walk for one reason or another I get to keep everything which is pretty damn sweet. I don't currently have plans to do so as there are certain benefits and so far I enjoy the over all culture, but who knows what the future will hold. I'll have a lot of options at the end of this road.

5 years ago

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Tewam

Well. If it isnt about killing bunch of folks then congrats. Yes.

5 years ago

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scorkla

Thanks! And congratulations!

5 years ago

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