I like "Joe"

[Old Line Dog]

:d:d

6474

[Lineman North Florida]

That makes two of us.:D

[Orgnizdlbr]

Joe is head and shoulders above the other guy. But who taught Joe to use chain pullers in the primaries on what looks to be #2 ACSR. My 9 yo granddaughter can pull #2 with slack blocks.

[Lineman North Florida]

Joe is head and shoulders above the other guy. But who taught Joe to use chain pullers in the primaries on what looks to be #2 ACSR. My 9 yo granddaughter can pull #2 with slack blocks.
I suspect that you would be quite amazed at what some of them are being taught at some of these schools.

[Orgnizdlbr]

I suspect that you would be quite amazed at what some of them are being taught at some of these schools.

Oh boy......

[stiffneck]

I suspect that you would be quite amazed at what some of them are being taught at some of these schools.

What's an alternative to going to "School", when trying to break into this line of work?

[Lineman North Florida]

What's an alternative to going to "School", when trying to break into this line of work?
Here in Fl a young man that wants to get into this line of work only needs to enquire with contractors to start as a grunt, but there is plenty of work here and that may not be the case in other places. I certainly don't blame anyone trying to break into the trade for getting started however they can but it seems like every other month a new school or training program pops up, a lot of these are at local community colleges and are always hunting full time instructors for very little $ and you can only guess what type of instructions those young people are getting, most hire on thinking that they are lineman and you spend a lot of time getting them on track for where they really are. There are some good programs that have excellent instructors because they have a structured program and realize that you get what you pay for and when you get a kid out of their program you can tell that someone with background in the trade has spent some time with him,but there is no substitution for OJT and they will get that on the job.

[rob8210]

Sounds like you guys in Florida have the same kind of troubles with new apprentices as we are here in Ontario. Too many colleges offering “pre-apprentice “ courses with instructors that are less than fully qualified, resulting in new guys that think they know lots, and end up being re-trained for the real world.

[Lineman North Florida]

Sounds like you guys in Florida have the same kind of troubles with new apprentices as we are here in Ontario. Too many colleges offering “pre-apprentice “ courses with instructors that are less than fully qualified, resulting in new guys that think they know lots, and end up being re-trained for the real world.

Rob you hit the nail on the head, sounds like you have seen this before.

[rob8210]

Yeah LNF , I have lived it. It’s the new normal here. Lots of apprentices coming from these schools, but very few that can actually think and do the work. Plenty of them that think they know everything, and more than us 30 year guys. If Florida wasn’t so dang far from home I would come down there to work. As it is I am in the process of getting a work visa to work in upstate New York. Strange thing is it’s closer to home than most of the work here!

[Lineman North Florida]

Rob, a lot of guys that are working here in Florida will be heading to the NE as soon as it gets hot , summer time down here can be brutal and when you tack on ground to ground rubber glove rules and sleeves that some of these company's tack on it can make for a long day. I have a buddy that worked all last summer in New York and loved it, said he worked nothing but Hendrix cable. Good luck. Charlie.

[rob8210]

Thanks Charlie. I am working on it right now , hopefully somebody can get work visas. I worked in gloves and sleeves one summer in Connecticut. I don’t mind telling ya there sure are hot! We don’t have sleeves here in Ontario yet, but the way I have seen some of the new generation work, I don’t think they are too far away!

[Orgnizdlbr]

I worked in gloves and sleeves my whole career in the hot, humid Jersey summers. I have no idea how you guys in Florida do it in the summer. I’ll tell ya this, it gets awful cold in Jersey in the 🥶 and the gloves and sleeves suck in the winter too. Not sure how you guys in Canada deal with frozen fingers 4 months out of the year.....

[rob8210]

Well Labor, yeah it’s cold, but we do have these little cotton liners for our rubber gloves that do a decent job of keeping our hands warm . Oh yeah , and warming them up on the truck heater helps a lot. Most decent foreman here will tell you to take a break whenever you get cold.

[Lineman North Florida]

t have been lucky the only time I have ever had to wear sleeves have been when I was working off of a Baker board , the rest of the time just cover up good and work out of your leathers and rubber gloves when needed, but there aren't many places left that don't have at the very least a ground to ground rubber glove policy.

[rob8210]

Wow Charlie, I thought those days of working sensible are long gone. Everybody here is anal about the ground to ground rubber glove rule. I am actually surprised they haven’t tried to bring in sleeves yet.

[Orgnizdlbr]

Yeah Rob, had the cotton liners, summer weight and winter weight and I had to go up a glove size in the winter. Put the gloves on the dash with the defroster roaring or under the heater but when it’s cold, it’s cold. Some foreman have sense but before I left we had foreman with about 2 days in the trade with no idea how to get work done......

[rob8210]

Good point , Labor . That’s mostly all we have here now , foreman with it seems like 2 days in the trade, no common sense , and no sense of humour. They can quote the rule book but don’t ask them how the rule works!