Aep

[west coast hand]

Does anybody know anything about AEP are they a good company to work for??? Thanks guys

[rcdallas]

I've heard they are the most union friendly company out there... If I remember right I heard this from my 7th district rep.

[wtdoor67]

I retired from PSO 3 yrs. ago. I considered PSO and AEP , the most labor hating SOB's I ever experienced in my years of linework. Contact any hand who currently works for PSO and they will overwhelmingly agree.

[rcdallas]

No, serious as a heart attack that's what I heard.

I suppose I was fed a line of shit?

[wtdoor67]

for 4 utilities and I considered them the worst. The head VP over the line crews etc. originated in Texas from an all non-union experience to the best of my knowledge.

One of their typical behaviors was to terminate someone for some minor infraction. It was almost a given from the start that, if the dismissed followed through with the proper grievance procedure, that he or she would be re-instated. I saw this happen several times and the general opinion was that it was simply for harassment purposes. It was generally opined that it would put a person in a bind for approx. a year, screw up his insurance for awhile etc. and cause he or she a temporary hardship.

On the contrast management personnel seemed to have free rein with co. equipment for personal use. Witnessed this several times.

Not exactly in line with this but an interesting aside was once they had mislaid a rope machine. When it was unaccounted for there was temporary panic until someone finally discovered or remembered that it had been lent to a sister utility. Can you imagine if a hand had misplaced a 100,000 dollar piece of equipment?

There was a co. bulldozer once that was almost openly kept by a management puke, and used to work on his ranch property for about a year. I saw quite a bit of that kind of stuff. They would fire a hand over a gallon of gas however.

[wtdoor67]

is off topic, I gotta bring it up, as it's so damn funny. I've mentioned it in the past but I can't resist.

Worked several storms in Tulsa. One of their cute habits up there was to take an old worn out linetruck and use it for a temporary crutch to hold up a broke pole. Especially if this would save a little overtime.

I noticed one like this once and since it seemed to have been on location for a spell, I mentioned it to one of the local hands. He laughed. Hell that's nothing. He then spoke of one that had been used for this and was forgotten about. Grass had grown up and kids had vandalized it by breaking the glass etc. and filling the fuel tanks full of dirt.

One guy swore that he knew of one like that and the local builder that was working in the area had reached a point where it was impeding his work. After several calls to PSO he finally went ahead with his project. This trapped the truck in a alley or something and it had to be partially dismantled to retrieve it.

I overheard a SWEPCO hand on a storm break, telling his buddies in a restaurant about something like this once as he had never seen such before. Their guide was a Tulsa mechanic and when they exclaimed after seeing such a setup the guide said. Good God, we've been looking for that truck. True story.

[Special ED]

Danny can speak for AEP out in OK but if yeah head further East AEP seems like a pretty good outfit. Worked plenty of storms on their property and liked what I seen but Im a constuction hand so no poco's for me atleast not yet.

[wtdoor67]

When I first went to work for PSO they were a part of what was called Central Southwest Corp. This consisted of PSO (Pub. Serv. Co. of Ok.), SWEPCO (Southwestern Elec. Pwr. Co.), WTU (West Texas Utilities) and CPU (Central Power and Light.) PSO and SWEPCO were IBEW and WTU and CPU were non-union. Sort of a strange mix I thought.

When word came that CSW would be taken over by AEP, our BA said he thought it might be a good thing as although AEP would be tough to deal with but more "honest" than CSW. Very, very wrong.

I used to PM a guy or two from this board who were AEP employees in Ohio. I got one's phone number and even called and chatted with him a time or two. In my opinion they were somewhat oppressed I thought. I believe they thought they had a good job but really it's the only game in town.

I attended the 2000 lineman rodeo in KC. Located a team from somewhere in Ohio that were AEP hands. Very closemouthed men and didn't seem to wish to talk about their working conditions.

I exchanged emails once with a guy who was in their system in W. Virginia. We all got a good laugh out of it. His name etc. appeared on the co. computer as the recepient of a "bronze award". Some kind of mickey mouse award he had received for being so outstanding a hand. The writeup on his actions were centered around his expertise in helping some areas doing cutovers. The crux of his technique was simply cutting off the power in order to do a cutover. I sent him a sarcastic email mainly in jest. Boy did he get offended. He called my boss's boss and pitched a bitch. It cause quite a bit of hilarity around the shop.

AEP? I wouldn't touch em with a 10 foot pole.

They would probably treat a contractor good during a storm. Hell I saw em treat all those rat contractors good during storms. When you're in a bind it changes your attitude.

[Trbl639]

Never worked for AEP, except on a few storms, on the PSO territory, got treated ok, one of those ice storms, our guys slept in 18 wheeler bunk houses and rat contractors were in the motels......

..got some buddies that work for SWEPCO, in the Texarkana and Shreveport area, and they've told me some stories about how they were treated and the stupid stuff management did............sounded like some pretty screwed up stuff.........but thinking about it, it wasn't much different that the stupid crap Entergy pulled on us!!!!