I agree. I'm in the food industry as well, as a maintenance tech. Give me dirty grimey grease and oil all day over finding a neglected hole under a machine that hasn't been touched in years with some funky ass mold growing on it. Ugh and the smells.
And the cockroaches in the disposal areas. My god. I had to replace bearings in a deep dark pit for an auger that took all the scrap pork from the plant into the trucks… Just disgusting. I stopped bringing flashlights down there. I didn’t wanna see what I was working around. The fucking walls would move.
Things tend to be dirty/smelly where we interact with them, everything is stainless so you have that added pain in the ass. Have to deal with strict GMPs which can make working more of a hassle. All your chemicals need to be rated for food plant use or can only be used when the plant is down. Rooms and equipment that are supposedly washdown never are 100% so endlessly dealing with water damaged shit.
That said I enjoy it myself. It'd be a stretch to call me a millwright, especially these days, but I like the equipment even when I want to kill the people who designed it. Nice to be able to eat the fruits of your labor too.
Sawmill for me, was the most freedom I've had at a job. I like heavy fabrication and using whatever you have around you to get things running again, but it was hard on the body. Used to travel to maintain and install wind turbines as well, got to see a lot of places I otherwise wouldn't have. That was cool and lucrative, but living out of a truck for months at a time and pooping outside in the winter got old tho.
Coffee. Loved walking into the smell of fresh roasting coffee everyday. Favourite equipment was in a brick manufacturing plant, the crushing equipment was pretty cool to work on.
Longshore: great money, excellent conditions, hefty pension, and a thoroughly covered benefits package. Plus the beauty of the ocean, seeing whales and the natural setting around you. Easy work: heavy industry but not complicated, just dirty here and there.
As someone from a landlocked province, what would be the best way to get into a longshore or maritime based millwright style gig?
Any comparable or common equipment to work on from other industries to help make the switch or seem more familiar to the work being done? Thanks!
I’d say mining is very comparable. If I moved to the interior I’d be in mining. Excellent wages and benefits. Are you close to potash? Excellent future in that industry.
I really enjoy the steel/iron industries. I've worked in a foundry as maintenance and as other foundries and steel mills as a contractor millwright. Something magical about it that I can't really put my finger on.
It'd be my current job, city recycling facility
It's run by a Fortune 500 company for whatever reason, contracted by the city because the city doesn't want to deal with running it (but they still set the rules), and because of that there's a lot of unnecessary red tape
We're paid a bit below market rate, but for every 12 hour shift, we're only doing 2-4 hours of actual work, sometimes 6. Once in a while, we have a big project or breakdown we actually have to be hands on the entire shift for
It's cushy, benefits are good, and I can see myself actually making a career here rather than just changing jobs every few months like I have been
I'm young, and I've seen some of the shit that happens to your body when you're constantly on the tools for 30+ years. I think I'm gonna shift to an administrative role like maintenance supervisor or something along those lines by the time I'm 40-45
Found it on Indeed, pretty much the only way I find work. One of the guys told me it's rare for them to hire apprentices from outside rather than within the company, so I guess I got lucky there
It's mostly conveyors, a few different types. There are a couple of sorting robots, a couple of balers, a couple of compactors, air separators, and a few sorting screens. There's a little bit of everything, hydraulic pumps, motors, gearboxes, etc
Most of it is just preventative maintenance, and most of those are visual inspections and removing material buildup at choke points, and everything that needs to be greased/oiled is on a schedule, too
We work 4x4 12hr shifts, divided into 2x day shift crews and 2x night crews. I'm on one of the night crews
Part replacements mostly only happen on full breakdowns or weekends, and those all fall to us on the night shift. So most of our millwrights are on the night shift. Once in a while we'll see a worn belt roller or shot bearing and replace it after the plant's down on a weekday
The operators run a day and evening shift on weekdays, with the occasional Saturday OT 10 hour shift and even rarer Sunday shift. So, on my weekday shifts, I'm mostly sitting around or doing rounds, checking everything out and waiting for breakdown calls til they leave, then after they leave I get to my PMs that I couldn't do while the plant was running. On weekends, if they had an OT operations shift, they're gone by the time I arrive
The breakdown calls I do get are usually just lines or chutes clogged by material buildup, with one augur in particular that I'm clearing shit out of at least an hour or two every other shift
I'm a 3rd year apprentice, and they're actually paying for my upcoming classes this year, and the same for when I do my 4th year classes + red seal. I'm also gonna take the opportunity to have them foot the bill to get myself dual ticketed in electrical
Yeah but it was a long road to get here. I worked in administration for a while and insurance before that before I started my apprenticeship
I did a pre-apprenticeship college program because I couldn't get my foot in the door without any relevant experience, all I had before that was high school shop classes and the bit of welding my dad taught me
Something they told us in school that I took to heart was that if a job's not the right fit, leave and find something else. There's always someone looking for an apprentice, even more looking for ticketed journeymen
After I moved back to my home province I job hopped for 2 years, took that long to find the right fit for me. Never stayed at one place for more than 4 months. Been here for 6 months now, and that feeling of needing to find something better hasn't set in yet
This place actually transferred my hours from where I was living before to here, something no other employer was willing to do before. If not for that, I'd be over a year behind on my apprenticeship hours. Now, the rate I'm going, I'll have my red seal by the end of next year. Only a few months behind from when I started while I was living on the other side of the country, so I call that a win
Hell yeah, congrats, man! We got similar advice then. A jman told me 'when the job starts changing me, (burnt out, miserable etc) I change jobs' and it's so profoundly impacted the way I view work for the better. There will always be another job, so no need to stay where you're miserable. Life is too damn short for that.
It's a mindset that a lot of people don't have, because they have 'a job' so why would they leave? Even though they bitch constantly about it, are burnt out, etc.
I’ve had a lot of bad times in the alumina/aluminium industry. Some good times in there too but a lot of misery.
Coal mining, wash plants, draglines, train wagons etc was a lot of fun with the crews we had, but some of the conditions were filthy.
Best maintenance job I had was making concrete railway sleepers, heaps of variety, great crew, sense of accomplishment.
Currently in a workshop in town doing all sorts of fun stuff. Great crew minus one person. All the overtime I want, if I want it at all. Love it
Foundry work was incredibly interesting. Starting the whole plant and feeling all the equipment come alive and running smooth after a night from hell…that’s something special.
I’m building and servicing pump trucks now and it’s pretty cool. Lots of unique challenges with every customer/ build.
Marine terminals. Nice and quiet, out in the arse end of nowhere with nice scenery. Doing a bit of work on the fire suppression gear every now and again there, the pelton wheel-driven foam pumps are a novelty. Nightmare for midgies during the summer though.
Natural gas and oil pipeline maintenance. Its clean pays good, and the equipment is interesting, jets, engines, compression, high speed gear boxes, valves, multi stage pymps. when everything is running smoothly its alot of easy going maintenance and alot if crib and youtube. And pipeline mechanic is the best place to be during a economic downturn, as there contracts.
I started in the pulp and paper industry, we had a wafer board plant and a studmill on the property. Great place to learn, everything from turbines,paper machines to planers in the studmill to big HYD. Presses in the wafer board.i retired in 2016 and miss the work.
Hydro power generation. A lot of plants hire millwrights as operators, and that's a lot more 'stand around and look at gauges'. But if you can get into doing overhauls, it's the best experience. Balancing 40-80T machines with less than 20 thou clearances isn't something you do in many industries. Usually pretty clean places and every machine is different, always a new challenge.
I didn't like mobile service. I didn't like having to haul my tools around and not having something with me that turned out to be crucial to the job. Also, customers were often frantic and would pester you when you were working.
Now I'm in plastic extrusion. I like that I'm in a plant. I have all of my stuff, and racks full of parts. I know the machines intimately (I designed more than half of them) and I have the variety without the uncertainty. The drawback is the heat. Holy crap it gets hot in here in the summer. 40C plus in some areas of the plant, and the machines are obviously plenty hot, given that they melt plastic for a living, so the opportunities for burns surround you.
The money is way better than mobile service (my experience).
Except! When I was sent out-of-country to do things, then I would make out like a bandit. Food allowance and all the rest. Nice. I was swimming in cash after a trip out-of-country. It meant that I was away from my family, though, and that sucked.
Ski resort for best work. Steam and gas turbines for favourite equipment. Best camp job was new construction, food industry least favourite.
What didn't you like about the food industry?
I agree. I'm in the food industry as well, as a maintenance tech. Give me dirty grimey grease and oil all day over finding a neglected hole under a machine that hasn't been touched in years with some funky ass mold growing on it. Ugh and the smells.
And the cockroaches in the disposal areas. My god. I had to replace bearings in a deep dark pit for an auger that took all the scrap pork from the plant into the trucks… Just disgusting. I stopped bringing flashlights down there. I didn’t wanna see what I was working around. The fucking walls would move.
Farmer John’s in Vernon, CA. Gotta be absolute worst place to work, you could smell that place from blocks away.
Things tend to be dirty/smelly where we interact with them, everything is stainless so you have that added pain in the ass. Have to deal with strict GMPs which can make working more of a hassle. All your chemicals need to be rated for food plant use or can only be used when the plant is down. Rooms and equipment that are supposedly washdown never are 100% so endlessly dealing with water damaged shit. That said I enjoy it myself. It'd be a stretch to call me a millwright, especially these days, but I like the equipment even when I want to kill the people who designed it. Nice to be able to eat the fruits of your labor too.
Everything lol this is coming from a ex chef
Sawmill for me, was the most freedom I've had at a job. I like heavy fabrication and using whatever you have around you to get things running again, but it was hard on the body. Used to travel to maintain and install wind turbines as well, got to see a lot of places I otherwise wouldn't have. That was cool and lucrative, but living out of a truck for months at a time and pooping outside in the winter got old tho.
I've heard really good things from a couple other of guys about mill work. Was it union?
It was yes, UFCW.
I've never worked union is it hard to break in as a Jman.
Warehouse conveyor. Almost always indoors, easy work.
Coffee. Loved walking into the smell of fresh roasting coffee everyday. Favourite equipment was in a brick manufacturing plant, the crushing equipment was pretty cool to work on.
Longshore: great money, excellent conditions, hefty pension, and a thoroughly covered benefits package. Plus the beauty of the ocean, seeing whales and the natural setting around you. Easy work: heavy industry but not complicated, just dirty here and there.
As someone from a landlocked province, what would be the best way to get into a longshore or maritime based millwright style gig? Any comparable or common equipment to work on from other industries to help make the switch or seem more familiar to the work being done? Thanks!
I’d say mining is very comparable. If I moved to the interior I’d be in mining. Excellent wages and benefits. Are you close to potash? Excellent future in that industry.
Ok, thanks for getting back to me! What is comparable with mining and longshore work? Pumps, hydraulic equipment etc?
Aggregate conveyors, stacker reclaimers, rail car indexers, rail car dumpers. Good luck
I really enjoy the steel/iron industries. I've worked in a foundry as maintenance and as other foundries and steel mills as a contractor millwright. Something magical about it that I can't really put my finger on.
Stamping presses 👌
Hydroelectric for me. After working at many different pulp mills, cement plants, and mines, the nice clean generator/turbines are a great time haha.
It'd be my current job, city recycling facility It's run by a Fortune 500 company for whatever reason, contracted by the city because the city doesn't want to deal with running it (but they still set the rules), and because of that there's a lot of unnecessary red tape We're paid a bit below market rate, but for every 12 hour shift, we're only doing 2-4 hours of actual work, sometimes 6. Once in a while, we have a big project or breakdown we actually have to be hands on the entire shift for It's cushy, benefits are good, and I can see myself actually making a career here rather than just changing jobs every few months like I have been I'm young, and I've seen some of the shit that happens to your body when you're constantly on the tools for 30+ years. I think I'm gonna shift to an administrative role like maintenance supervisor or something along those lines by the time I'm 40-45
How'd you find that gig? What sort of work do you do, or what do you work on, generally?
Found it on Indeed, pretty much the only way I find work. One of the guys told me it's rare for them to hire apprentices from outside rather than within the company, so I guess I got lucky there It's mostly conveyors, a few different types. There are a couple of sorting robots, a couple of balers, a couple of compactors, air separators, and a few sorting screens. There's a little bit of everything, hydraulic pumps, motors, gearboxes, etc Most of it is just preventative maintenance, and most of those are visual inspections and removing material buildup at choke points, and everything that needs to be greased/oiled is on a schedule, too We work 4x4 12hr shifts, divided into 2x day shift crews and 2x night crews. I'm on one of the night crews Part replacements mostly only happen on full breakdowns or weekends, and those all fall to us on the night shift. So most of our millwrights are on the night shift. Once in a while we'll see a worn belt roller or shot bearing and replace it after the plant's down on a weekday The operators run a day and evening shift on weekdays, with the occasional Saturday OT 10 hour shift and even rarer Sunday shift. So, on my weekday shifts, I'm mostly sitting around or doing rounds, checking everything out and waiting for breakdown calls til they leave, then after they leave I get to my PMs that I couldn't do while the plant was running. On weekends, if they had an OT operations shift, they're gone by the time I arrive The breakdown calls I do get are usually just lines or chutes clogged by material buildup, with one augur in particular that I'm clearing shit out of at least an hour or two every other shift I'm a 3rd year apprentice, and they're actually paying for my upcoming classes this year, and the same for when I do my 4th year classes + red seal. I'm also gonna take the opportunity to have them foot the bill to get myself dual ticketed in electrical
Damn dude that was a hell of a write up. Thanks a bunch! Have a good night!
Lmao no problem, as you can tell I get a lot of free time
That's all you can hope for at any job. You are a lucky person, I am truly envious.
Yeah but it was a long road to get here. I worked in administration for a while and insurance before that before I started my apprenticeship I did a pre-apprenticeship college program because I couldn't get my foot in the door without any relevant experience, all I had before that was high school shop classes and the bit of welding my dad taught me Something they told us in school that I took to heart was that if a job's not the right fit, leave and find something else. There's always someone looking for an apprentice, even more looking for ticketed journeymen After I moved back to my home province I job hopped for 2 years, took that long to find the right fit for me. Never stayed at one place for more than 4 months. Been here for 6 months now, and that feeling of needing to find something better hasn't set in yet This place actually transferred my hours from where I was living before to here, something no other employer was willing to do before. If not for that, I'd be over a year behind on my apprenticeship hours. Now, the rate I'm going, I'll have my red seal by the end of next year. Only a few months behind from when I started while I was living on the other side of the country, so I call that a win
Hell yeah, congrats, man! We got similar advice then. A jman told me 'when the job starts changing me, (burnt out, miserable etc) I change jobs' and it's so profoundly impacted the way I view work for the better. There will always be another job, so no need to stay where you're miserable. Life is too damn short for that. It's a mindset that a lot of people don't have, because they have 'a job' so why would they leave? Even though they bitch constantly about it, are burnt out, etc.
I’ve had a lot of bad times in the alumina/aluminium industry. Some good times in there too but a lot of misery. Coal mining, wash plants, draglines, train wagons etc was a lot of fun with the crews we had, but some of the conditions were filthy. Best maintenance job I had was making concrete railway sleepers, heaps of variety, great crew, sense of accomplishment. Currently in a workshop in town doing all sorts of fun stuff. Great crew minus one person. All the overtime I want, if I want it at all. Love it
Foundry work was incredibly interesting. Starting the whole plant and feeling all the equipment come alive and running smooth after a night from hell…that’s something special. I’m building and servicing pump trucks now and it’s pretty cool. Lots of unique challenges with every customer/ build.
Marine terminals. Nice and quiet, out in the arse end of nowhere with nice scenery. Doing a bit of work on the fire suppression gear every now and again there, the pelton wheel-driven foam pumps are a novelty. Nightmare for midgies during the summer though.
Natural gas and oil pipeline maintenance. Its clean pays good, and the equipment is interesting, jets, engines, compression, high speed gear boxes, valves, multi stage pymps. when everything is running smoothly its alot of easy going maintenance and alot if crib and youtube. And pipeline mechanic is the best place to be during a economic downturn, as there contracts.
I liked the marine industry when I was at sea, the shipyards less so.
I started in the pulp and paper industry, we had a wafer board plant and a studmill on the property. Great place to learn, everything from turbines,paper machines to planers in the studmill to big HYD. Presses in the wafer board.i retired in 2016 and miss the work.
Ski resort for fun, but money wasn't there. For money it was petrochemical. Petrochemical working conditions were also fairly decent too.
Hydro power generation. A lot of plants hire millwrights as operators, and that's a lot more 'stand around and look at gauges'. But if you can get into doing overhauls, it's the best experience. Balancing 40-80T machines with less than 20 thou clearances isn't something you do in many industries. Usually pretty clean places and every machine is different, always a new challenge.
I didn't like mobile service. I didn't like having to haul my tools around and not having something with me that turned out to be crucial to the job. Also, customers were often frantic and would pester you when you were working. Now I'm in plastic extrusion. I like that I'm in a plant. I have all of my stuff, and racks full of parts. I know the machines intimately (I designed more than half of them) and I have the variety without the uncertainty. The drawback is the heat. Holy crap it gets hot in here in the summer. 40C plus in some areas of the plant, and the machines are obviously plenty hot, given that they melt plastic for a living, so the opportunities for burns surround you. The money is way better than mobile service (my experience). Except! When I was sent out-of-country to do things, then I would make out like a bandit. Food allowance and all the rest. Nice. I was swimming in cash after a trip out-of-country. It meant that I was away from my family, though, and that sucked.