REA COOP or Investor owned Utility

[stickstomper]

Which one is better to work at ? Is being in a small group of people better
(COOP) or is being with a large group better (IOU). Are IOU utilities better equipped and trained or are Coop people ? Which would you rather work at ?

Thanks, Stick

[CenterPointEX]

IOU's pidgeon hole you... You will get a wider range of training at a coop or REA..

[graybeard]

Every company is different, at the utility that I work at I've worked everything from 345kv to the house meter. But then thats not done company wide either. I don't think that at an REC that you'll get any trans. work. I know at least the REC crews around here don't do trans.

[thrasher]

Some Coops do transmission work, most don't.
Coops tend to want to hire local and train in-house rather than hire from elsewhere, but there are exceptions.
At least for the companies I've been around the Coops care more about getting the consumer on and keeping him on. Partly because the consumers are the nieghbors they grew up with and partly because the consumers own the company and elect the board of directors. You give bad service the board comes down on everybody and forget about raises. Give good service make people happy and the board is feeling good at negoiation time.
Most Coops pay a little less per hour than the IOU's but the benefits usually match-up pretty well and lets face it most coops are in areas where it is cheaper to live than a lot of IOU's.
Some coops have problems with nepotism, most have tried to mend thier ways about that.
Finally at a Coop they are small enough that you know who made what decision. It's not some nameless, faceless committee.
As you can guess I prefer Coops.
However when I didn't agree with some of the decisions being made, I said so and left to another Coop.

[bigfoot]

well you get to do the lot and you wider view of what's going on and whats new