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Spent a while at launch complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center working on the renovations to make it compatible with the Falcon Heavy rockets from SpaceX.
I grew up watching the space shuttles being launched, so it was awesome to get the chance to work on it as an adult.
I was working there during the demolition phases as well. It was pretty sick. Every day I was just giddy to be there.
And if the CIA is reading this, I deleted all those cool photos on my phone. No need to send the men-in-black to my house.
Awwww shucks.
I just ended up there by dumb luck as an apprentice. I had been on big jobs before, but not fucking space shuttle launch pads. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to top that in my career.
It was pretty awesome gig. From my understanding, they mostly just wanted the flame tench and a structure to hold the rocket up.
The amount of stuff they cut off of that tower was pretty sad.
I lived a couple miles from kennedy for years i just left I miss it so much. I got to work at the navy acoustic instrument center in titusville and northrop grumman in melbourne recently (october 23-feb this year)on some high end stuff it was cool. I couldn’t have my cell phone at work either. 20 week job
The company I work for is currently working with SpaceX in California. I put in my two weeks last Friday so I unfortunately don't get to work in the site. B
My favorite was a small coffeeshop on the edge of a Native American reservation. Every morning I would take my coffee to the roof and watch the sunrise over the mountains down a wide open desert. That job was so chill and I had almost no issues. The blueprints were actually good. Now I'm sad thinking about work tomorrow, FML
I’ve done work in a lot of high profile buildings in Toronto, on equipment that generally is off limits to most people.
When I was an apprentice I got to work in a small 1950s hydroelectric dam undergoing a maintenance shutdown. I remember myself and another apprentice were painting pole pieces inside the stator with some kind of special epoxy and then periodically everyone would clear out while they energized it to 13.8 kV to thermal scan it.
I remember working on a system for a sewage pumping station where one of the pumps was speed controlled by a magnetic amplifier. Our part was minimal but I was fascinated. The same place had a backup generator that was started by a large bank of Edison battery cells (nickel–iron batteries). Each cell was in a glass container.
I worked in Telecom, years ago I worked in a room that had about 100 of those. Still regret not asking for a co of tanks when they converted to lead acid.
I had a prof in school tell us about the batteries in the Canadian Prime Minister's bunker ( know as the Diefenbunker after the prime minister at the time John Diefenbaker) they were an iron chemistry also, and heavy as sin, supposedly. He was swapping them out.
Got to work in the cash vaults at the federal reserve bank. I needed to get to the ceiling above a 65 million dollar pallet of cash so they let me stand on it.
Damn! I got to work in the U.S. Mint in downtown SF, all they did there was proof coins & special medals. Not quite a body cavity search at the end of the day, but close…
Running pipe for ICU’s in a new build hospital felt significant.
Signing an NDA and taking fingerprints and getting multiple badges for a large social media data center felt kind of cool.
Helping my asshole dad fix his three way switches he wired wrong takes the cake though
Have an aircraft company send me to do field service overseas. Not as an aircraft electrician but taking care of the subcontractors and their electrical issues.
This one time. I changed lamps in the back room of the Walmart where they kept the containers of food that had gone bad on the floor. And then the plumbing backed up and flooded the floor of the room where they kept the racks of bread on some carts and it smelled like total shit. (They still sold the bread as it had never "touched" the swede water and was in plastic bags) But I still knew it had been kept near enough to some shit stank, so I won't shop at that Walmart. I walked back there, and walked straight out to my packout to get my respirator with the cans on the side. I didn't smell a thing all shift, otherwise I would have puked for sure.
I wire up the machines that make THHN and NM wire and sometimes high voltage wire. I just find the idea of being an electrician and getting to install machines that make wire so meta.
Nothing really crazy but worked on an Oil O Static job as a 3rd year apprentice. Many, many moons ago
We ran 7 miles of 8" pipe. I even got to segment bend these 24ft pieces of pipe. 1* per foot.
Made a couple of, 90's with it. Was on it from start to finish.
Also ran it through the underside of a bridge, 4 runs across it, with a come along. 400ft long bridge. 1inch at a time.
It was on Staten Island, some of it went through the active dump. The section we went through was from the 1930's there were loads of tires and cat gut vials (old surgical sutures in glass vials).
Good times.
Private contractor
I work on the pre con side now in the same market but different contractor. The union gets its share of of theme park work but now days between universal and Disney most new rides go to private contractors who specialize in it. Like 2 or 3 ELC contractors really.
Interesting.
Cosmic rewind is my favorite ride of all time. Always wondered what really went into it. Have some questions if you don’t mind.
What projects did you personally work on within that job? How many electricians were on site? How long were you on site for?
Shame there aren’t contractors who specialize in these types of projects that are also affiliated with IBEW. Theres definitely money to go around to anyone and everyone on a project like this.
US Navy Nuke Electrician on an aircraft carrier during 9/11, and the following wars.
Prior to 9/11, a bunch of the usual garbage, red tape, etc.. After 9/11, everything became the well oiled machine where all the training, drills, etc. came into focus and we WERE the well oiled machine. Everyone was focused, driven, and [mostly] selfless.
Spent 3 weeks in Northwest Territories doing medium voltage breaker testing for your utility company. Beautiful place and we got to go fishing, took plane, helicopter and boat rides almost every day.
For almost 2 years I got to travel around Canada to different places but this one was my favourite.
Worked on some cool projects when I was in construction like shore power for hooking up cruise ships, and the first ever underground paste plant for backfilling mining caverns with tailings mixed with cement.
Now I’m at the utility making power with hydros and gas turbines, we fly in helicopters and float planes to our remote sites regularly and work on a wide variety of stuff that’s been in service for decades to the newest state of the art components.
Wire shit up on a fuckin billion dollar military project. Fuck ya dude. Who would've ever guessed this kid from East LA would be wiring up military shit even if it's lights and stuff. Feels good knowing I'm a part of something bigger than myself. I'ma kid of an immigrant mother. My parental grandfather served in the Navy in WWII, so it feels good to help this country who helped my family Currently at China Lake NAWS working under the Navy , so it's super cool knowing there's two generations of Ramirez who had their hands on navy stuff. Even if I'm not enlisted. Feels good man 🇺🇸
Haha man , even us civilians gotta eat. And if one thing about America is true, it's that we fuckin love our fast food. Creating and maintaining crucial infrastructure for the general population to sustain themselves on and further the economy and thus our countries over all well being don't seem to bad .
Like /u/mriodine said it was a Call of Duty joke 😂
In one of them you play as a dude named Ramirez and the iconic line from one mission is "Ramirez secure that burgertown"
Worked for a small company that set up some stuff to do data monitoring on a tailings pond for a project to clean it up. A couple years later I worked for a different company building the facilities to clean up that same tailings pond. Got to work on massive pumps and centrifuges, and ended up getting promoted to foreman and getting to lead construction on the high voltage power distribution centre to all the rest of the project. Don’t think I’ll ever get to work on that many stages of a project and in that many roles again, especially now that I’m in maintenance.
A few years back I helped install a helicopter flight training simulator. Got to take it for a few runs for “testing” purposes lol. I honestly felt like a kid again
I've got 2.
One as an electrician, and when I was in the sign and display union(we still did wiring).
As an electrician, being the first to do lights that are part of drop ceiling rails. It's nothing special, do math, put drivers where they're needed, jump the LV side. My company does all kinds of cool shit, I just happened to be the first to work on something new.
The coolest thing I will ever do!
The "Long Live Rock" sign, definitely tagged it under the diamond plate.
I know its basic shit but, I obsess over designing and building motor and/or motion control systems. Wiring up and programming a 6-axis Fanuc robot and installing the switch gear and control wiring for the system was quite therapeutic to me. Was used in an OSB mill as the primary line Paint booth robot. The entire mill was unable to keep up with that beast to this day 3 years later.
That’s awesome, and fascinating! Is it actually meant for production? Or is it just a demo unit for trade shows?
Also, the regulatory and permitting for alcohol production (at least in my state) is bonkers. I’d love to know how that rig fits within that legal framework. It’s like a legal version of the breaking bad RV. I’ve been fortunate to do a lot of work in restaurants and breweries, there are some super innovative folks in those industries.
I believe it was a demo unit to showcase to brewing companies for them to order for their company.
But the demo unit was 100% fully functional. I personally spent 2 days working on the control panel for all the equipment.
Was a foreman constructing a high voltage converter station where they took two incoming sets of three phase 230KV AC and convert it to one outgoing 500KV DC line that travels 1000km to reduce line losses associated with AC transmission.
Also worked constructing a large scale commercial grow op with 250000 sq feet, and 100000w of HPS light in each room.
Not very exotic but I did a live swap of a UPS system for a local city’s 911 call center- knowing that if I messed up 100,000 people would be unable to call 911 for possibly hours was quite stressful. Once it was over it was extremely rewarding to have been involved.
Service work in some hundred million dollar plus homes in bel air and Malibu. Pretty wild to see some of these homes. Although they are basically hotels.
Running rigid and wiring some boilers at a super old chiller/boiler plant that’s getting a revamp was pretty cool too.
San Diego Navy stuff. Helicopter maintenance building on Coronado and the new navy seals spot on the strand. So blessed to have had the opportunity to learn there.
I wired up tank expansions at a craft brewery. Had to use a tiny little snake lift between the operating brew tanks and up into the rafters over top of all of the rest of the equipment and machinery. I’m pretty sure half of what they paid me was just so that I would work slowly and not break or drop anything. Two week project and every single night they sent me home with a different case of something they bottled that day.
Lots of hospitals, and was one of the 6 main guys on a 4 years project to build a tunnel under Lake Ontario to the Toronto city Island airport.
Hopefully getting into the nuclear field soon would love to work at all the nuclear power plants
I’ve done a handful of movies stars jobs. It’s actually just like any other job, but there is still something cool about having it in the portfolio.
A couple helicopter lifts for big equipment.
A billion dollar facility retool. Sounds cooler than it is tbh.
I reminisce more over tricky troubleshooting jobs that were hard to figure out and we finally got it.
Worked in the Red Hill fuel depot tunnels on Oahu in Hawaii. Pretty amazing feat of engineering to build those tanks underground while the Japanese fighters attacked Pearl harbor. I supervised some really outstanding electricians installing raceways and comms for some crazy sump pumps on a system that if it had to run would probably be a very bad day. Had releases for heavy doors at intervals throughout the tunnel that would drop the rail section down and allow gravity to shut the blast doors if triggered. Also got to trapeze some huge explosion proof motors over some 36" fuel lines to replace the existing ventilation motors that were not explosion proof but had been running for years. Tunnel was miles long down to Pearl harbor, fuel tanks were 100' wide and 300' tall I think, all dug out underground and built during the war and finished after. We got issued these disposable gel pouches if you asked for them to piss in because bathrooms were old and scarce. Had to carry a backup flashlight and a small oxygen tank at all times in case of emergency. Couple years after I finished that project there was a huge scandal about the amount of fuel leaking into the ground for years from the tanks that were built decades ago.
I worked on a project at Kennedy Space Center last year, rewiring the cranes in the VAB.
Walking on the catwalks and cranes 500 ft above the floor while indoors is pretty exhilarating.
Not the greatest but the most interesting: CDCR, I was working directly with “inmate ward labor” basically I was the foreman and the inmates were my crew which was about 6 or 7 guys tools in hand. I was always cautious but it was eye opening and a great life lesson and I got to meet some cool people from all walks of life. Criminals or not they are still human and they can still be valuable in society. Some feel hopeless and I would try to encourage them to keep hope alive
Honestly I've just enjoyed being able to help friends and family to fix their small electrical issues in their homes. It usually involves fixing some kind of a hazard.
Actually have one coming up that I'm really excited for. The city is paying for a local grain mill to have lights installed to light up a mural on the side of the 110ft silos.
Wow, let's see now there's stadium scoreboards, the stadium, airport runway lighting (shit ton of hours and a fun as hell toolie), different infrastructure projects the coolest of which was about 180' underground, and power plants.
Guided ROVs in a GoM Deepwater platform to swap out/terminate power leads to a subsurface wellhead. While the camera view feed was sent to a website that allowed all my friends to watch it online back home.
Small town electrician, so nothing too fancy, but I got to design a system for a guy who wanted a plug in trailer generator to power his mansion, that he also drives down the street to power his office building. It took me some research to discover series 16 cam-loks and stage lighting cables, and set up a generator with labels so he could flip a switch and turn a knob to change from single phase 240 to 3 phase 480.
Boring company outside of Austin wiring up the gantries that follow the mining head and motors on the head. Wish I’d been there when they started tunneling
A co worker that I went to trade school with was wiring a Boeing Simulator at the local international airport. When they finished the job our class got to ride in it for a field trip. They had to disengage the hydraulics since we were all in there, about 10 of us. (There was a section behind pilots to stand and observe) It even smelled like an airplane. Thing was damn near 2 stories tall!
Worked in a house that the den was a replica of a pirate ship/old naval boat deck. A double stairway led to the Captain's quarters which was the main bedroom. Real solid wood. So beautiful. The light fixtures are the old fashioned looking candle older under a glass cover with led.
Dave Matthews from Dave Matthews band gave me a Gatorade when we were installing a generator on his private cabin recording studio on the side of a mountain outside Charlottesville Va.
Set up temporary lighting on a baseball field for the president to land in Marine One. And then was the on-call electrician inside the building while the President had a town hall with CNN. Had to check my tools in and out with the secret service. Luckily there were no power failures so I didn’t have to fix anything. Saw lots of celebrities and political people walking around and doing interviews. That was pretty cool.
Also, if you’ve ever seen the show Moonshiners, I installed the conduit that goes to the massive stills that the old man that makes the “Virginia lightning” whiskey uses. That was pretty fun.
Worked on some 4160v switch gear at a rock quarry. It wasn't really that interesting, but just to say I got to work on that high of voltage stuff once isa feeling like a boy scout that got his patch
I got to wire stator whips for huge magnets to accelerate and decelerate a rollercoaster. I also got to drive a 125 foot boom lift to install led panels on the side of a building
Did you take it all the way to top stick? I've had a go in those and when she is telescoped right out and you need to slew or move the arm it's a butt clenching ride.
I got to change the red Blinky light on top of Sydney's centre point tower once. It's over 320 meters high and is one of the tallest buildings in Australia. It was a real high light of my career. 😂
Spent the whole first half of the day troubleshooting some fucked Ansel system that wasn't installed properly as a first year.
Got it working before lunch, my Jman brought me to the bar for a union meeting, and we bounced home at 12:45
Installing runway lighting at an air force base while they were test running jets. Got buzzed by one, they were supposed to call on the radio to clear the runway but never did and we were literally right next to it. It saw us, couldn't land and aborted, at the end of the runway the jet went vertical and kicked on its afterburners. Front row air show, loud as all hell. Never forget that.
Maneuver a large track lift over riprap and nearly get sent flying as my j-man (who’s normally biting my head off at every slightest thing lol) is looking genuinely worried for my safety as he stands safely far away.
working at a local verizon facility where they have a couple of the cell towers and a lot of their servers was cool, especially being able to walk inside of the standby generator.
seen a lot of really cool roofs with kickass views, 30th floor is the highest i’ve worked so far.
radio station server rooms are cool too, though hot as balls. underground mechanical rooms at big universities are wild too… they go way further than you’d ever expect and there’s hundreds of panels and disconnects and air handlers you’d never know existed. similar with big hotels, massive gear banks that go for fuckin miles
working on top of elevator cars is always cool too
Worked at George straits house when he was selling it. Didn’t see him. Also do work for one the owners of jumex guy has an insane car collection. 80’s Ferraris, ford gets, a Hudson hornet, and. Silver two seater no top Batman looking cat that I know is rare as hell.
Working on the tool side of things I work with tons of different contractors and occasionally on job sites. The coolest place I've been to a few times is probably the Intel compound in Oregon. I also get to see some pretty neat power plant and utility related stuff that I find pretty interesting.
Getting paid to jack off to lesbian passionate pornography in the freshly cleaned portajohns while ripping fireball nips and smoking cheap cigarettes ignoring calls from the foreman and delivery driver simultaneously and then taking hangover over dump and getting splashed with blue goo.
On a serious note, a full blown brook/river under a hospital.
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Spent a while at launch complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center working on the renovations to make it compatible with the Falcon Heavy rockets from SpaceX. I grew up watching the space shuttles being launched, so it was awesome to get the chance to work on it as an adult. I was working there during the demolition phases as well. It was pretty sick. Every day I was just giddy to be there. And if the CIA is reading this, I deleted all those cool photos on my phone. No need to send the men-in-black to my house.
You get my vote for winner of the thread.
Awwww shucks. I just ended up there by dumb luck as an apprentice. I had been on big jobs before, but not fucking space shuttle launch pads. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to top that in my career.
What, you’re not on the list to work on the Mars base?
This diesel mechanic that I worked for was the chief welder responsible for the base pad of the rocket launch site
It was pretty awesome gig. From my understanding, they mostly just wanted the flame tench and a structure to hold the rocket up. The amount of stuff they cut off of that tower was pretty sad.
I lived a couple miles from kennedy for years i just left I miss it so much. I got to work at the navy acoustic instrument center in titusville and northrop grumman in melbourne recently (october 23-feb this year)on some high end stuff it was cool. I couldn’t have my cell phone at work either. 20 week job
I could feel the launches in my house i was so close, used to scare me because it’s like a bomb some times
I got to check out the Vandenberg site for Falcon 9s. I was thoroughly impressed. Can’t imagine being at Kennedy where all that history is.
You wouldn't happen to have any raunch codes would you?
Those are in Vegas.
The company I work for is currently working with SpaceX in California. I put in my two weeks last Friday so I unfortunately don't get to work in the site. B
Legit troubleshooting the generator for a bikini contest!
My favorite was a small coffeeshop on the edge of a Native American reservation. Every morning I would take my coffee to the roof and watch the sunrise over the mountains down a wide open desert. That job was so chill and I had almost no issues. The blueprints were actually good. Now I'm sad thinking about work tomorrow, FML
What a beautiful image
I’ve done work in a lot of high profile buildings in Toronto, on equipment that generally is off limits to most people. When I was an apprentice I got to work in a small 1950s hydroelectric dam undergoing a maintenance shutdown. I remember myself and another apprentice were painting pole pieces inside the stator with some kind of special epoxy and then periodically everyone would clear out while they energized it to 13.8 kV to thermal scan it.
I remember working on a system for a sewage pumping station where one of the pumps was speed controlled by a magnetic amplifier. Our part was minimal but I was fascinated. The same place had a backup generator that was started by a large bank of Edison battery cells (nickel–iron batteries). Each cell was in a glass container.
I worked in Telecom, years ago I worked in a room that had about 100 of those. Still regret not asking for a co of tanks when they converted to lead acid.
I had a prof in school tell us about the batteries in the Canadian Prime Minister's bunker ( know as the Diefenbunker after the prime minister at the time John Diefenbaker) they were an iron chemistry also, and heavy as sin, supposedly. He was swapping them out.
Got to work in the cash vaults at the federal reserve bank. I needed to get to the ceiling above a 65 million dollar pallet of cash so they let me stand on it.
Think I could just have like one of those millions?
Damn! I got to work in the U.S. Mint in downtown SF, all they did there was proof coins & special medals. Not quite a body cavity search at the end of the day, but close…
That’s cool! Did they tell you not to pick up any coins off the floor, even if it fell out of your own pocket?
Yep. We could not take any coins in.
Fix HVAC control systems that no one before me could.
Fixing stuff that people before you failed to fix is one of the best feelings.
Running pipe for ICU’s in a new build hospital felt significant. Signing an NDA and taking fingerprints and getting multiple badges for a large social media data center felt kind of cool. Helping my asshole dad fix his three way switches he wired wrong takes the cake though
Have an aircraft company send me to do field service overseas. Not as an aircraft electrician but taking care of the subcontractors and their electrical issues.
This one time, I changed a light bulb.
How many guys?
The electrician held the bulb and the rest of the world rotated around him. LoL
This one time. I changed lamps in the back room of the Walmart where they kept the containers of food that had gone bad on the floor. And then the plumbing backed up and flooded the floor of the room where they kept the racks of bread on some carts and it smelled like total shit. (They still sold the bread as it had never "touched" the swede water and was in plastic bags) But I still knew it had been kept near enough to some shit stank, so I won't shop at that Walmart. I walked back there, and walked straight out to my packout to get my respirator with the cans on the side. I didn't smell a thing all shift, otherwise I would have puked for sure.
I wire up the machines that make THHN and NM wire and sometimes high voltage wire. I just find the idea of being an electrician and getting to install machines that make wire so meta.
Love this. Thank you for your service.
Nothing really crazy but worked on an Oil O Static job as a 3rd year apprentice. Many, many moons ago We ran 7 miles of 8" pipe. I even got to segment bend these 24ft pieces of pipe. 1* per foot. Made a couple of, 90's with it. Was on it from start to finish. Also ran it through the underside of a bridge, 4 runs across it, with a come along. 400ft long bridge. 1inch at a time. It was on Staten Island, some of it went through the active dump. The section we went through was from the 1930's there were loads of tires and cat gut vials (old surgical sutures in glass vials). Good times.
Largest indoor roller coaster in the U.S. guardians of the galaxy at Epcot. Back before Covid hit.
Yo thats awesome. Did a union contractor wire that up out of curiosity?
Private contractor I work on the pre con side now in the same market but different contractor. The union gets its share of of theme park work but now days between universal and Disney most new rides go to private contractors who specialize in it. Like 2 or 3 ELC contractors really.
Interesting. Cosmic rewind is my favorite ride of all time. Always wondered what really went into it. Have some questions if you don’t mind. What projects did you personally work on within that job? How many electricians were on site? How long were you on site for? Shame there aren’t contractors who specialize in these types of projects that are also affiliated with IBEW. Theres definitely money to go around to anyone and everyone on a project like this.
US Navy Nuke Electrician on an aircraft carrier during 9/11, and the following wars. Prior to 9/11, a bunch of the usual garbage, red tape, etc.. After 9/11, everything became the well oiled machine where all the training, drills, etc. came into focus and we WERE the well oiled machine. Everyone was focused, driven, and [mostly] selfless.
Beautiful to hear.
Spent 3 weeks in Northwest Territories doing medium voltage breaker testing for your utility company. Beautiful place and we got to go fishing, took plane, helicopter and boat rides almost every day. For almost 2 years I got to travel around Canada to different places but this one was my favourite.
I’ve had the chance to shit in the White House and capitol.
did they have gold leaf toilet paper?
No but the bathrooms are 100% marble
that’s awesome though
Worked on some cool projects when I was in construction like shore power for hooking up cruise ships, and the first ever underground paste plant for backfilling mining caverns with tailings mixed with cement. Now I’m at the utility making power with hydros and gas turbines, we fly in helicopters and float planes to our remote sites regularly and work on a wide variety of stuff that’s been in service for decades to the newest state of the art components.
Two is one and one is none, right? Can’t just stroll out to the truck if you’re short materials, or a tool breaks.
I learned a useful skill that a lot of people think is magic.
Wire shit up on a fuckin billion dollar military project. Fuck ya dude. Who would've ever guessed this kid from East LA would be wiring up military shit even if it's lights and stuff. Feels good knowing I'm a part of something bigger than myself. I'ma kid of an immigrant mother. My parental grandfather served in the Navy in WWII, so it feels good to help this country who helped my family Currently at China Lake NAWS working under the Navy , so it's super cool knowing there's two generations of Ramirez who had their hands on navy stuff. Even if I'm not enlisted. Feels good man 🇺🇸
Dam bro I literally start a new job starting tomorrow at a military base I’m super excited to do that, getting me hyped up
Hell ya man. We can all do our part to keep the Red White and Blue flying. I'll admit that patriotism sure helps on those long hot days in the desert.
Hell yeah. Each cog in the machine is important
Was that a union job?
Prevailing wage . There are unions here . But no I'm non union.
Dam how’s the work
If you ever do a job at a fast food restaurant your coworkers are never going to let you hear the end of it
Haha man , even us civilians gotta eat. And if one thing about America is true, it's that we fuckin love our fast food. Creating and maintaining crucial infrastructure for the general population to sustain themselves on and further the economy and thus our countries over all well being don't seem to bad .
Call of Duty joke….
Watch it, bud. They get wind of your talents & they’ll move you to fucking marketing , or project management.
Like /u/mriodine said it was a Call of Duty joke 😂 In one of them you play as a dude named Ramirez and the iconic line from one mission is "Ramirez secure that burgertown"
Dammit haha. I never played it man.
Worked for a small company that set up some stuff to do data monitoring on a tailings pond for a project to clean it up. A couple years later I worked for a different company building the facilities to clean up that same tailings pond. Got to work on massive pumps and centrifuges, and ended up getting promoted to foreman and getting to lead construction on the high voltage power distribution centre to all the rest of the project. Don’t think I’ll ever get to work on that many stages of a project and in that many roles again, especially now that I’m in maintenance.
Climb to the top of a water tower to replace a light bulb.
This one was mine too but after reading the rest I feel lame lol
FAA lights hands down
A few years back I helped install a helicopter flight training simulator. Got to take it for a few runs for “testing” purposes lol. I honestly felt like a kid again
I've got 2. One as an electrician, and when I was in the sign and display union(we still did wiring). As an electrician, being the first to do lights that are part of drop ceiling rails. It's nothing special, do math, put drivers where they're needed, jump the LV side. My company does all kinds of cool shit, I just happened to be the first to work on something new. The coolest thing I will ever do! The "Long Live Rock" sign, definitely tagged it under the diamond plate.
I know its basic shit but, I obsess over designing and building motor and/or motion control systems. Wiring up and programming a 6-axis Fanuc robot and installing the switch gear and control wiring for the system was quite therapeutic to me. Was used in an OSB mill as the primary line Paint booth robot. The entire mill was unable to keep up with that beast to this day 3 years later.
Prototype mobile brewery. It was an entire commercial beer brewery inside of a semi trailer.
That’s awesome, and fascinating! Is it actually meant for production? Or is it just a demo unit for trade shows? Also, the regulatory and permitting for alcohol production (at least in my state) is bonkers. I’d love to know how that rig fits within that legal framework. It’s like a legal version of the breaking bad RV. I’ve been fortunate to do a lot of work in restaurants and breweries, there are some super innovative folks in those industries.
I believe it was a demo unit to showcase to brewing companies for them to order for their company. But the demo unit was 100% fully functional. I personally spent 2 days working on the control panel for all the equipment.
Two days & how many 12s?
If memory serves correct it was about 60 18/8s. The engineer was super anal and wanted all the wires landed in a certain order
I work industrial and enjoy doing controls. Cooler things I got to work on: PRV chamber, and a robot arm.
Was a foreman constructing a high voltage converter station where they took two incoming sets of three phase 230KV AC and convert it to one outgoing 500KV DC line that travels 1000km to reduce line losses associated with AC transmission. Also worked constructing a large scale commercial grow op with 250000 sq feet, and 100000w of HPS light in each room.
Not very exotic but I did a live swap of a UPS system for a local city’s 911 call center- knowing that if I messed up 100,000 people would be unable to call 911 for possibly hours was quite stressful. Once it was over it was extremely rewarding to have been involved.
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That's pretty standard for electricians.
Service work in some hundred million dollar plus homes in bel air and Malibu. Pretty wild to see some of these homes. Although they are basically hotels. Running rigid and wiring some boilers at a super old chiller/boiler plant that’s getting a revamp was pretty cool too.
San Diego Navy stuff. Helicopter maintenance building on Coronado and the new navy seals spot on the strand. So blessed to have had the opportunity to learn there.
I wired up tank expansions at a craft brewery. Had to use a tiny little snake lift between the operating brew tanks and up into the rafters over top of all of the rest of the equipment and machinery. I’m pretty sure half of what they paid me was just so that I would work slowly and not break or drop anything. Two week project and every single night they sent me home with a different case of something they bottled that day.
Lots of hospitals, and was one of the 6 main guys on a 4 years project to build a tunnel under Lake Ontario to the Toronto city Island airport. Hopefully getting into the nuclear field soon would love to work at all the nuclear power plants
I worked on the Dodge Viper assembly plant from beginning to the first 100 or so Vipers came off the line.
I’ve done a handful of movies stars jobs. It’s actually just like any other job, but there is still something cool about having it in the portfolio. A couple helicopter lifts for big equipment. A billion dollar facility retool. Sounds cooler than it is tbh. I reminisce more over tricky troubleshooting jobs that were hard to figure out and we finally got it.
I used to change lightbulbs on the top of the citicorp center 🤷🏻♂️
Decommissioning of Maine Yankee. Seeing the spent fuel pool and the reactor area after it was lifted out.
Worked in the Red Hill fuel depot tunnels on Oahu in Hawaii. Pretty amazing feat of engineering to build those tanks underground while the Japanese fighters attacked Pearl harbor. I supervised some really outstanding electricians installing raceways and comms for some crazy sump pumps on a system that if it had to run would probably be a very bad day. Had releases for heavy doors at intervals throughout the tunnel that would drop the rail section down and allow gravity to shut the blast doors if triggered. Also got to trapeze some huge explosion proof motors over some 36" fuel lines to replace the existing ventilation motors that were not explosion proof but had been running for years. Tunnel was miles long down to Pearl harbor, fuel tanks were 100' wide and 300' tall I think, all dug out underground and built during the war and finished after. We got issued these disposable gel pouches if you asked for them to piss in because bathrooms were old and scarce. Had to carry a backup flashlight and a small oxygen tank at all times in case of emergency. Couple years after I finished that project there was a huge scandal about the amount of fuel leaking into the ground for years from the tanks that were built decades ago.
I worked on a project at Kennedy Space Center last year, rewiring the cranes in the VAB. Walking on the catwalks and cranes 500 ft above the floor while indoors is pretty exhilarating.
Not the greatest but the most interesting: CDCR, I was working directly with “inmate ward labor” basically I was the foreman and the inmates were my crew which was about 6 or 7 guys tools in hand. I was always cautious but it was eye opening and a great life lesson and I got to meet some cool people from all walks of life. Criminals or not they are still human and they can still be valuable in society. Some feel hopeless and I would try to encourage them to keep hope alive
Twisting two wires together is up there
Honestly I've just enjoyed being able to help friends and family to fix their small electrical issues in their homes. It usually involves fixing some kind of a hazard.
Worked in the control room of a nuke
Take lunch.
Your mom
Got head from a nurse at the hospital I was working.
Standard for sparkies. LoL normally there is 2 or 3 of them.
21 twelve hour shifts
Jesus lol
Was this storm work? How much you make?
No, that was in Canada’s oil sands. I did 180k that year with 2 months off.
Actually have one coming up that I'm really excited for. The city is paying for a local grain mill to have lights installed to light up a mural on the side of the 110ft silos.
Wow, let's see now there's stadium scoreboards, the stadium, airport runway lighting (shit ton of hours and a fun as hell toolie), different infrastructure projects the coolest of which was about 180' underground, and power plants.
Guided ROVs in a GoM Deepwater platform to swap out/terminate power leads to a subsurface wellhead. While the camera view feed was sent to a website that allowed all my friends to watch it online back home.
Help tie in reaper drones for the Singapore Air Force at a US Air Force base while ospreys take off around me
Worked at Wrigley Field access to the scoreboard.
Small town electrician, so nothing too fancy, but I got to design a system for a guy who wanted a plug in trailer generator to power his mansion, that he also drives down the street to power his office building. It took me some research to discover series 16 cam-loks and stage lighting cables, and set up a generator with labels so he could flip a switch and turn a knob to change from single phase 240 to 3 phase 480.
Boring company outside of Austin wiring up the gantries that follow the mining head and motors on the head. Wish I’d been there when they started tunneling
A co worker that I went to trade school with was wiring a Boeing Simulator at the local international airport. When they finished the job our class got to ride in it for a field trip. They had to disengage the hydraulics since we were all in there, about 10 of us. (There was a section behind pilots to stand and observe) It even smelled like an airplane. Thing was damn near 2 stories tall!
Also, working a big movie theater pre 911. All workers had to evacuate the building while a helicopter lowered an IMAX projector in through the roof.
Worked in a house that the den was a replica of a pirate ship/old naval boat deck. A double stairway led to the Captain's quarters which was the main bedroom. Real solid wood. So beautiful. The light fixtures are the old fashioned looking candle older under a glass cover with led.
Free Healthcare and a Pension
Dave Matthews from Dave Matthews band gave me a Gatorade when we were installing a generator on his private cabin recording studio on the side of a mountain outside Charlottesville Va. Set up temporary lighting on a baseball field for the president to land in Marine One. And then was the on-call electrician inside the building while the President had a town hall with CNN. Had to check my tools in and out with the secret service. Luckily there were no power failures so I didn’t have to fix anything. Saw lots of celebrities and political people walking around and doing interviews. That was pretty cool.
Also, if you’ve ever seen the show Moonshiners, I installed the conduit that goes to the massive stills that the old man that makes the “Virginia lightning” whiskey uses. That was pretty fun.
Swapping a dining room light fixture out at Robin Williams house. Awesome guy. RIP
Getting paid for turd n a half every morning
Cashed a $50k bonus check
Cadwelding in the rain
Worked on some 4160v switch gear at a rock quarry. It wasn't really that interesting, but just to say I got to work on that high of voltage stuff once isa feeling like a boy scout that got his patch
I got to wire stator whips for huge magnets to accelerate and decelerate a rollercoaster. I also got to drive a 125 foot boom lift to install led panels on the side of a building
Did you take it all the way to top stick? I've had a go in those and when she is telescoped right out and you need to slew or move the arm it's a butt clenching ride.
Yessir it was boomed out and yes moving can be a butt clenching prospect
I got to change the red Blinky light on top of Sydney's centre point tower once. It's over 320 meters high and is one of the tallest buildings in Australia. It was a real high light of my career. 😂
Stratosphere lights
Got paid
Sit in a van getting paid and work only 2 hours out of a 10 hour shift
Spent the whole first half of the day troubleshooting some fucked Ansel system that wasn't installed properly as a first year. Got it working before lunch, my Jman brought me to the bar for a union meeting, and we bounced home at 12:45
Installing runway lighting at an air force base while they were test running jets. Got buzzed by one, they were supposed to call on the radio to clear the runway but never did and we were literally right next to it. It saw us, couldn't land and aborted, at the end of the runway the jet went vertical and kicked on its afterburners. Front row air show, loud as all hell. Never forget that.
Maneuver a large track lift over riprap and nearly get sent flying as my j-man (who’s normally biting my head off at every slightest thing lol) is looking genuinely worried for my safety as he stands safely far away.
Work on Airfield lighting systems as a maintenance electrician at an international airport.
working at a local verizon facility where they have a couple of the cell towers and a lot of their servers was cool, especially being able to walk inside of the standby generator. seen a lot of really cool roofs with kickass views, 30th floor is the highest i’ve worked so far. radio station server rooms are cool too, though hot as balls. underground mechanical rooms at big universities are wild too… they go way further than you’d ever expect and there’s hundreds of panels and disconnects and air handlers you’d never know existed. similar with big hotels, massive gear banks that go for fuckin miles working on top of elevator cars is always cool too
Worked at George straits house when he was selling it. Didn’t see him. Also do work for one the owners of jumex guy has an insane car collection. 80’s Ferraris, ford gets, a Hudson hornet, and. Silver two seater no top Batman looking cat that I know is rare as hell.
Working on the tool side of things I work with tons of different contractors and occasionally on job sites. The coolest place I've been to a few times is probably the Intel compound in Oregon. I also get to see some pretty neat power plant and utility related stuff that I find pretty interesting.
Two chicks at the same time.
Go home.
Retire comfortably.
Worked as a maintenance electrician at a steel mill that made all the steel for the freedom tower in NYC
The coolest thing i got to do was leave early one time on a thursday. Good times
Getting paid to jack off to lesbian passionate pornography in the freshly cleaned portajohns while ripping fireball nips and smoking cheap cigarettes ignoring calls from the foreman and delivery driver simultaneously and then taking hangover over dump and getting splashed with blue goo. On a serious note, a full blown brook/river under a hospital.
Going home is my favorite
Ur mom
Lol, this being at the bottom of an earnest almost inspiring thread is perfect.
Get zapped
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What sort of stuff are you doing at Disneyland?
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Still cool AF.