crawford
New Member
Joined up for something fun to read after work, I've been running equipment for a very short time roughly 18 months, my first 14 of those were at a small central valley contractor. I was hired as an Operator, but ended up in the shop for 4 months.
In those First four months I mostly did Reynolds scraper hitch repairs, i.e. bushings, pins, washers. I plumbed a 631b can to a D8T. and a few other simple things like assisting in the repair of some CASE differentials. Removing a D7H transmission. Replacing a folded cutting edge on a Reynolds tilt can.
Picking the wheel carriage off one of two IMC 22.5 pull pans for repair.
But as much as I love wrenching, I wasn't there to fix broken machines when there's dirt to be moved and a shortage of operators. So the bossman and I had a talk, and he threw me on one of these.
Which was setup with Topcon.
After 2.5 months of leveling fields for solar farms, I was sent back to the Ag side of the company and learned how to do GPS surveys and field slope designing, as well as some sump designing in Earthworks3d. after 9 months I was one step short of completely running the Land leveling division of this company at the ripe old age of 22. When I asked for my first raise 12 months in we couldn't come to an agreement. His counter offer of $15/hr as a "foreman" or supervisor of the land leveling division wasn't worth the headache, I had foreseen this and was setup to join the I.U.O.E. Local 3 for operating engineers.
I'm currently one week out from completing the mandatory 5 week apprenticeship course at the Rancho Murrieta training center. After that I'll be on my way to work.
Heres a fun video of me in an excavator for the first time to make up for that wall of text. I'm a bit better now :drinkup
http://youtu.be/8biEdZ8dFUg
In those First four months I mostly did Reynolds scraper hitch repairs, i.e. bushings, pins, washers. I plumbed a 631b can to a D8T. and a few other simple things like assisting in the repair of some CASE differentials. Removing a D7H transmission. Replacing a folded cutting edge on a Reynolds tilt can.
Picking the wheel carriage off one of two IMC 22.5 pull pans for repair.
But as much as I love wrenching, I wasn't there to fix broken machines when there's dirt to be moved and a shortage of operators. So the bossman and I had a talk, and he threw me on one of these.
Which was setup with Topcon.
After 2.5 months of leveling fields for solar farms, I was sent back to the Ag side of the company and learned how to do GPS surveys and field slope designing, as well as some sump designing in Earthworks3d. after 9 months I was one step short of completely running the Land leveling division of this company at the ripe old age of 22. When I asked for my first raise 12 months in we couldn't come to an agreement. His counter offer of $15/hr as a "foreman" or supervisor of the land leveling division wasn't worth the headache, I had foreseen this and was setup to join the I.U.O.E. Local 3 for operating engineers.
I'm currently one week out from completing the mandatory 5 week apprenticeship course at the Rancho Murrieta training center. After that I'll be on my way to work.
Heres a fun video of me in an excavator for the first time to make up for that wall of text. I'm a bit better now :drinkup
http://youtu.be/8biEdZ8dFUg
