Thread took off while I was away. I'm in Denver, I started with the local John Deere outfit north of Denver, was priced out of housing, college town, so I went to private companies on the south side of Denver. But most that I applied to were disasters, some couldn't even hide in the interview how much of a mess their company was. The offers right now are $28 to $32 an hour which doesn't go very far against $2500/mo rental or $3000/mo mortgage for a nothing special place in a not so great part of the city.
I've been busy over the last week applying in Colorado, Kansas City, etc and the people in Kansas City area are biting hard, apparently they're getting some of their best guys from Denver who decided to move. One called me an hour after I sent an application in. The pay is the same or better than what's offered here but a house is half what it is here so seems like a win.
Also had a chat with someone from Cripple Creek mine, the 2 weeks on 2 weeks off would be kinda sweet being able to have lots of time with the kids. Right now I'm gone before they wake and home when they're asleep, so other than weekends I don't see them and sometimes I'm so tired from the week all I want to do is rest. My tool guy joked about the alaska/antartica jobs but I don't think the misses would keep me if I disappeared for 6 months at a time. The 2 weeks seems about max, but this one ad for cripple creek is the only one I've seen that doesn't want 2 years experience with underground equipment, of which I've got none.
As far as training all the private companies have the good tech's out in the field and the knuckle draggers in the shop. That turns out pretty much as expected. No factory training to be found. Also the shop foreman is usually buddies with the CEO or operations manager and that's how they got the job so no one actually has a clue how a real shop works. Vtech's thread is pretty typical for how too many companies operate around here.