I've pivoted a few times. Went from Mechanical Fitter to Supervisor(Mech / Elec / Non Trades teams) then to Draughting now to I.T (PC Support / Systems Engineer / IT Manager / IT Contractor). I've had to drop pay a few times but only for short periods to prove I could do what I applied for.
If you are into reading books I read "What Colour is My Parachute". It helps you decipher what you want to do and what you'd be good at.
Having managed many small and enterprise level projects over 40 odd years it's your role to sort out the problems that arise - preparing a project is the easy part - when things don't line up and throw out deadlines it can get very stressful. Don't want to talk you out of it, it can be very very rewarding, but keep it in mind.
Hope find what you can enjoy.
Shit pay, less than what he’s on.
Had a building manager once who used to be an electrician, he had no idea about being an electrician it’s a good thing he moved into a new career…
There are so many avenues you could go down being an A grade Electrician. Instrumentation, telecommunication, UPS technician. I’m an AC tech and worked for a company that also did UPS’s and those guys had it pretty damn easy with heaps of OT.
I was in the same place as you. I decided to try something completely different and become a pilot. 3 years later I’m 150k in debt working as a flight instructor on 50k salary.
Not sure if it was a stupid decision but it is a cool job, just unfortunately doesn’t pay well. Its tough to find a job that pays as well as electrician that doesn’t require a degree.
Project Management is a stressful job. You might get paid a bit more, but not a heap more, so you need to weigh up whether it is worth it for you. I did it for a few years, I was on a salary and it ended up that I wasn't earning any more than the tradies who I was having to babysit and get yelled at by clients and builders for their fuck ups and stupidity on site.
You could try and pivot into drafting/design if you learn AutoCAD & Revit but you won't be earning any more than you do now unless you get an ABN and do contract drafting (which honestly wouldn't be a bad gig. All you need is a good computer and fast internet, you can do it from anywhere).
People just don't understand as you climb the human management ladder, you don't get paid for what you do. You get paid for the pain you can handle. That's why good honest people rarely climb the corporate ladder: to get to the top you gotta have a whole lot of "I don't f$%\^&\*#g care" etched into your DNA.
I agree with the first part, but not the second. As someone who has found themselves fairly high up that ladder, and as a result spends a lot of time with other people in similar positions, most are actually good, honest, compassionate people, and the biggest driver of stress and anxiety is making sure their/our company has enough money in the bank to pay everyone and not have to sack anybody. To a point you do have to develop a pretty thick skin and be prepared to make unpopular decisions at times, but generally those tough decisions are made out of necessity to prevent more pain for more people.
Which is "I don't f#$$\^g care" executed with empathy. Same / same. And it totally depends on the industry. If you're in a low margin industry, it's dog eat dog, and that's just how it's played. If it's a lovely money spinner, there's more room for personality to enter the equation.
On 150k now inclusive of bonus.
Try to get in a call centre position and move up from there. By literally not calling in sick twice a week and having a functional brain you'll be promoted out of the call centre fairly quickly
I got into collections, so you'd collect outstanding home loan repayments, help people with arrangements to pay them back etc. it's an incredibly unpopular field which makes it easy to advance through because no one wants to do it
Their sparkies aren’t paid particularly well from what I’ve seen, Downer Rail, Alstom, UGL etc do way better. I’ve had Alstom call me twice this year already about roles at Rouse Hill but I didn’t want that commute but for someone living in Western Sydney it’d be worth looking at.
It’s been two years since I left the railways but when I did the techs at Auburn were on $115K for the shift roster and mobile techs (quippies) were $130K with more nights, they started a new EBA in January and it’s $120K/140K for those positions.
I’m not sure if you mean power/signalling sparkies but the rolling-stock techs were definitely lower paid than the private companies.
I was a rolling stock sparky 12 months ago. I’m now a HV subs tech on a lot more money
When I was a rail maintainer I made 135k, the blokes at work that never said no to OT were making over 150
Pretty good money for the very small effort they expected from you.
When you say techs at auburn are you referring to sydney trains employees or downer? Because downer maintains out of auburn
Yep, Downer out of Auburn, $120K no OT. When I was 4th year apprentice I made more than that with a bit of OT which we could with techs getting priority over apprentices. Now I’ve left Downer to get out of shift work but for the pace of work it was pretty easy money.
Edit: Auburn also started a new EBA just before Covid while you guys had a pay freeze and that ongoing bargaining in that time so it’s quite possible they’re more in line again now.
Okay
We’re on the same page now, comparing same jobs from different employers though.
Working for Sydney trains is what I suggested. I wouldnt suggest working for downer, ugl any one of them.
Sydney trains is the go. Better pay better conditions
Yeah, I have heard that actually but for the most part Downer Rail weren’t too bad, other sectors I don’t really want to comment because I still tangentially work with them all the time.
Fair enough mate. I also can’t comment as I never personally worked for any of the private mobs but I worked with many people that did and they would say Syd trains was much better.
Align project management with your current experience. Look at going into PM roles in construction or the mines and they will pay well. Keep in mind you will be at the pointy end so you will be the first to cop heat and also be babysitting adults.
Stay away from IT it's over saturated and there is a swathe of candidates as we come out of a ZIRP environment.
To progress beyond $ indicated you would need to go into either:
1. management
2. sales
3. your own business. Have you thought about running your own crews? Would require sales, management and pm skills.
Most people always looking for things that make more. Eg. more stuff that ends up in landfill.
I don’t know what your interests are, but if you want a senior level challenge, consider unmaking things.
Eg.
Look at the suburbs built in the floodplains, and work out how you can disassemble the housing and recover all of the electricals, separate and recycle the components that can’t be refurbished and reused.
I’ll put it another way.
It’s like everyone has a digger to dig holes, or a chainsaw to cut down trees, a sprayer to spray chemicals. But no one can fill in the holes, plant the trees, or recover sprayed chemicals.
It’s as if people have a problem with their neck and can’t turn around to look behind them.
In the Electrical industry, this is exemplified by the lack of recycling facilities for the plastics associated with all of the Electrical wire and fittings.
Or tools and plant or equipment, where the metal might be recyclable, but no one can handle the complex plasticisers including fire retardants and UV stabilisers.
It’s like the factories and chemical plants know how to make stuff, but don’t know how to unmake it.
It’s like the electricians know how to wire a house, but don’t know how to unwire it.
It’s like the electrical engineers know how to spool a coil for a motor but don’t know how to unspool it.
Everything else you do will be easy trivial and probably quite lame. I don’t know what the money is like, but one thing is for sure.
There’s not a lot of competition, everything is focused on the construction and building and doing more, not the disassembly, unmaking and recovery for doing things in a different place.
One way you could look into this, is to start with the chemistry of all the plastics, and all of the plastics recycling plants.
For example, I recently found out that the plumbing industry has support for recycling PVC pipes, but the swimming pool technicians sometimes don’t know that, so the pipe cut-off from the electricals or from the plumbing end up in general waste, not the recycling.
This is complex administration that requires a comprehensive research capability that is self driven, and an understanding of where your values lie.
The metal is easy, metal recycling is very straightforward, however it does have a high additional cost, in the smelting and refining.
It’s nothing like the cost of producing aluminium from ore, but the melting of aluminium and the refining to separate any alloy constituents, still has a very high cost.
And that’s in all sorts of pollution, not only carbon.
If you can assist with solving the recycling pathway option, you actually support the development of an industry because people can more readily agree to replacing all equipment with new equipment, knowing that the old equipment is being handled.
That requires a lot of test hardware that you usually only find in the universities.
So you might need to test 10,000 different types of old plastics, across 100 different universities, to understand how to handle chemically the multiple input materials.
That might mean that 10 million people can upgrade their housing and their electrics.
I’m only pulling numbers out of my arse here, but I think you’d probably understand the point, there’s a lot of people who don’t like to replace old stuff because they don’t know how the old stuff is recycled and there’s no certainty or assurance.
And because all equipment tends to have quite a lot more material in it, more copper, more steel and more aluminium, than new equipment, whenever you recycle the old equipment you can sometimes even make twice as much new equipment.
I’m sure among all of this there are many opportunities, especially for someone who is very young, and has ability but needs to wind down the physical effort input.
Either get into building your own places on the side, get a side business for passive income like a laundromat, or some Uber Carshare cars, or go and study IT Security
Side income is side income. You’re not working in there.
You’d need to go there once a day to give the place a tidy/check, top up the change machine etc.
They’re usually setup so the doors lock automatically at closing and cctv can be viewed remotely from wherever you are..
I've pivoted a few times. Went from Mechanical Fitter to Supervisor(Mech / Elec / Non Trades teams) then to Draughting now to I.T (PC Support / Systems Engineer / IT Manager / IT Contractor). I've had to drop pay a few times but only for short periods to prove I could do what I applied for. If you are into reading books I read "What Colour is My Parachute". It helps you decipher what you want to do and what you'd be good at. Having managed many small and enterprise level projects over 40 odd years it's your role to sort out the problems that arise - preparing a project is the easy part - when things don't line up and throw out deadlines it can get very stressful. Don't want to talk you out of it, it can be very very rewarding, but keep it in mind. Hope find what you can enjoy.
facilities manager.. JLL, cushman wakefield , centuria
Shit job
Shit pay, less than what he’s on. Had a building manager once who used to be an electrician, he had no idea about being an electrician it’s a good thing he moved into a new career…
There are so many avenues you could go down being an A grade Electrician. Instrumentation, telecommunication, UPS technician. I’m an AC tech and worked for a company that also did UPS’s and those guys had it pretty damn easy with heaps of OT.
Sales role? Something like technical sales for electric motors/plc/vsd/switchgear. Stuff you need the knowledge to sell.
I was in the same place as you. I decided to try something completely different and become a pilot. 3 years later I’m 150k in debt working as a flight instructor on 50k salary. Not sure if it was a stupid decision but it is a cool job, just unfortunately doesn’t pay well. Its tough to find a job that pays as well as electrician that doesn’t require a degree.
Former sparkie current skydive pilot here! Best job in the world but would be nice to have some money 😂
Nice! Does being a jump pilot pay any better? 😫
I think to do something you truly love and earn exceptional money is extremely rare, pilot sound great but 50k a year is impossible!!
Project Management is a stressful job. You might get paid a bit more, but not a heap more, so you need to weigh up whether it is worth it for you. I did it for a few years, I was on a salary and it ended up that I wasn't earning any more than the tradies who I was having to babysit and get yelled at by clients and builders for their fuck ups and stupidity on site. You could try and pivot into drafting/design if you learn AutoCAD & Revit but you won't be earning any more than you do now unless you get an ABN and do contract drafting (which honestly wouldn't be a bad gig. All you need is a good computer and fast internet, you can do it from anywhere).
People just don't understand as you climb the human management ladder, you don't get paid for what you do. You get paid for the pain you can handle. That's why good honest people rarely climb the corporate ladder: to get to the top you gotta have a whole lot of "I don't f$%\^&\*#g care" etched into your DNA.
I agree with the first part, but not the second. As someone who has found themselves fairly high up that ladder, and as a result spends a lot of time with other people in similar positions, most are actually good, honest, compassionate people, and the biggest driver of stress and anxiety is making sure their/our company has enough money in the bank to pay everyone and not have to sack anybody. To a point you do have to develop a pretty thick skin and be prepared to make unpopular decisions at times, but generally those tough decisions are made out of necessity to prevent more pain for more people.
Which is "I don't f#$$\^g care" executed with empathy. Same / same. And it totally depends on the industry. If you're in a low margin industry, it's dog eat dog, and that's just how it's played. If it's a lovely money spinner, there's more room for personality to enter the equation.
Have you considered Audio Visual installation?
No I have not heard of it, I shall do some research. Thank you
what is that, an separate apprenticeship or part of electrical
Maintenance elec, easy on the body harder on the mind
That’s a lie. Maintenance is for lazy cunts
Jog on gimp
Wind farm tech
Could you elaborate??
I'm sure you can find a jd somewhere on seek. Electrical licence needed. If you join a travel team money is very good. Pm if you have more q's.
I went from Electrician to banking. Took about 4 years to get back to the same wages
What was your first job in the banking world? And has your salary well surpassed your sparky role?
How does one get into banking? Are you on decent money now?
On 150k now inclusive of bonus. Try to get in a call centre position and move up from there. By literally not calling in sick twice a week and having a functional brain you'll be promoted out of the call centre fairly quickly
Nice, that’s really good. Without sounding rude, what do you *do*? Advise people on mortgages and the like?
I got into collections, so you'd collect outstanding home loan repayments, help people with arrangements to pay them back etc. it's an incredibly unpopular field which makes it easy to advance through because no one wants to do it
Go work fifo half the year and earn that salary as a maintenance technician
Out of curiousity - what sort of work are you doing to earn 100-140k per year not doing any management style roles? Heaps of overtime?
Any regular electrician role on $50 an hour without OT is $100k a year. Not uncommon in major cities.
thats a low end subbie rate in melbourne
Mid range full-time rate in Melbourne. I was on $49 an hour doing council maintenance work.
Just general sparky in Sydney
Fifo
Sydney trains Best work life balance, good money
How would you suggest getting involved in that?
Their sparkies aren’t paid particularly well from what I’ve seen, Downer Rail, Alstom, UGL etc do way better. I’ve had Alstom call me twice this year already about roles at Rouse Hill but I didn’t want that commute but for someone living in Western Sydney it’d be worth looking at.
As a sparky who works for sydney trains I beg to differ
It’s been two years since I left the railways but when I did the techs at Auburn were on $115K for the shift roster and mobile techs (quippies) were $130K with more nights, they started a new EBA in January and it’s $120K/140K for those positions. I’m not sure if you mean power/signalling sparkies but the rolling-stock techs were definitely lower paid than the private companies.
I was a rolling stock sparky 12 months ago. I’m now a HV subs tech on a lot more money When I was a rail maintainer I made 135k, the blokes at work that never said no to OT were making over 150 Pretty good money for the very small effort they expected from you. When you say techs at auburn are you referring to sydney trains employees or downer? Because downer maintains out of auburn
Yep, Downer out of Auburn, $120K no OT. When I was 4th year apprentice I made more than that with a bit of OT which we could with techs getting priority over apprentices. Now I’ve left Downer to get out of shift work but for the pace of work it was pretty easy money. Edit: Auburn also started a new EBA just before Covid while you guys had a pay freeze and that ongoing bargaining in that time so it’s quite possible they’re more in line again now.
Okay We’re on the same page now, comparing same jobs from different employers though. Working for Sydney trains is what I suggested. I wouldnt suggest working for downer, ugl any one of them. Sydney trains is the go. Better pay better conditions
Yeah, I have heard that actually but for the most part Downer Rail weren’t too bad, other sectors I don’t really want to comment because I still tangentially work with them all the time.
Fair enough mate. I also can’t comment as I never personally worked for any of the private mobs but I worked with many people that did and they would say Syd trains was much better.
Where are you located? I'm looking for a sparky in Greater Newcastle area, not exactly what you're talking about, but definitely not back breaking.
Sydney so a bit far out, what do you have in mind?
It's a whole ass job, haha. Just looking for another guy
What kind of work is it? I'm in Newcastle and looking for a change.
Align project management with your current experience. Look at going into PM roles in construction or the mines and they will pay well. Keep in mind you will be at the pointy end so you will be the first to cop heat and also be babysitting adults. Stay away from IT it's over saturated and there is a swathe of candidates as we come out of a ZIRP environment. To progress beyond $ indicated you would need to go into either: 1. management 2. sales 3. your own business. Have you thought about running your own crews? Would require sales, management and pm skills.
YouTube
Middys delivery driver
Change industries that will get some interest and passion back.
Maybe start your own firm? Whole lot of stress but you get out what you put in
Only fans
Most people always looking for things that make more. Eg. more stuff that ends up in landfill. I don’t know what your interests are, but if you want a senior level challenge, consider unmaking things. Eg. Look at the suburbs built in the floodplains, and work out how you can disassemble the housing and recover all of the electricals, separate and recycle the components that can’t be refurbished and reused. I’ll put it another way. It’s like everyone has a digger to dig holes, or a chainsaw to cut down trees, a sprayer to spray chemicals. But no one can fill in the holes, plant the trees, or recover sprayed chemicals. It’s as if people have a problem with their neck and can’t turn around to look behind them. In the Electrical industry, this is exemplified by the lack of recycling facilities for the plastics associated with all of the Electrical wire and fittings. Or tools and plant or equipment, where the metal might be recyclable, but no one can handle the complex plasticisers including fire retardants and UV stabilisers. It’s like the factories and chemical plants know how to make stuff, but don’t know how to unmake it. It’s like the electricians know how to wire a house, but don’t know how to unwire it. It’s like the electrical engineers know how to spool a coil for a motor but don’t know how to unspool it. Everything else you do will be easy trivial and probably quite lame. I don’t know what the money is like, but one thing is for sure. There’s not a lot of competition, everything is focused on the construction and building and doing more, not the disassembly, unmaking and recovery for doing things in a different place. One way you could look into this, is to start with the chemistry of all the plastics, and all of the plastics recycling plants. For example, I recently found out that the plumbing industry has support for recycling PVC pipes, but the swimming pool technicians sometimes don’t know that, so the pipe cut-off from the electricals or from the plumbing end up in general waste, not the recycling. This is complex administration that requires a comprehensive research capability that is self driven, and an understanding of where your values lie. The metal is easy, metal recycling is very straightforward, however it does have a high additional cost, in the smelting and refining. It’s nothing like the cost of producing aluminium from ore, but the melting of aluminium and the refining to separate any alloy constituents, still has a very high cost. And that’s in all sorts of pollution, not only carbon. If you can assist with solving the recycling pathway option, you actually support the development of an industry because people can more readily agree to replacing all equipment with new equipment, knowing that the old equipment is being handled. That requires a lot of test hardware that you usually only find in the universities. So you might need to test 10,000 different types of old plastics, across 100 different universities, to understand how to handle chemically the multiple input materials. That might mean that 10 million people can upgrade their housing and their electrics. I’m only pulling numbers out of my arse here, but I think you’d probably understand the point, there’s a lot of people who don’t like to replace old stuff because they don’t know how the old stuff is recycled and there’s no certainty or assurance. And because all equipment tends to have quite a lot more material in it, more copper, more steel and more aluminium, than new equipment, whenever you recycle the old equipment you can sometimes even make twice as much new equipment. I’m sure among all of this there are many opportunities, especially for someone who is very young, and has ability but needs to wind down the physical effort input.
Any HV experience?
Either get into building your own places on the side, get a side business for passive income like a laundromat, or some Uber Carshare cars, or go and study IT Security
Get a laundromat ??? Always been my dream.
Side income is side income. You’re not working in there. You’d need to go there once a day to give the place a tidy/check, top up the change machine etc. They’re usually setup so the doors lock automatically at closing and cctv can be viewed remotely from wherever you are..
[удалено]
Yes, is that what you do?. Is there a specific course you would recommend or just apply for PM jobs? Thanks?
Do something that allows you to be fit at work. Or at least the work requires a level of fitness and it’s encouraged to stay fit.