My interpertation of this is tha Bartlett is creating the illusion that the progression from deconner to ALARA Engineer is somehow natural, and not a product of the old-boy practice of rewarding the loyal employee by promoting him or her to a higher paying job. (We all know how it works: "Just work this one more outage for me as a ..... and I'll get you in as a ..... at ........") Actually, it was always more like keeping them loyal by promising them a move up.
Hey, deconning is a hard job. Sometimes, to get someone to stick with it, you have to give them a reason. You have to promise some upward mobility. This does not mean that there is any such thing as a "pipeline". What it means is that nuke plants need deconners, deconners see RP's making more money and sweating less, and the implied promise is always that if you work hard as a deconner you will be an RP.
This is the same as saying that if you do a really good job at picking up those towels and jockstraps, you will someday be the person who fills the Gatorade. Do a good job at that, and we might put you in at Wide Receiver a few times. Eventually, you will be Head Coach. But, if you ever want to lift the Lombardi Trophy over your head on the cover of SI, you gotta wash those socks and jocks for one more season.
I will reiterate for the zillionth time that many of the best technicians I have ever been provileged to work with got into the game as deconners. But, in my opinion this is the result of their own individual desire to better their station in life along with the ability to learn the job. They saw a better job than the one they had; they learned it. This does not mean that you need to be a deconner to be an RP. The fact is that most of the ex-deconner RP's that you find in the business were wasting their time as deconners in the first place, and should have started off as Junior RP's.
I also note the interjection of the word "safety", which has significance to me. As many have noticed, there are a number of former RP's who have made the career switch to EH&S positions (myself included) and bettered their incomes, working conditions, and professional development. Naturally, this has caused a lot of techs to consider making such a move themselves.
Enter the NEW BARTLETT!!!! Now comes Big Blue to offer a "total package" to the utilities of combination RP and EH&S services. I wish them luck and welcome them to the exciting world of industrial safety. It should be considered, however, that we who left the employ of Bartlett for greener pastures didn't just become wealthy on the spot as the result of switching from a purple hat to a green one, but that the name of the company stencilled on the front of the hat may have made all the difference.
I have to be up front and remind all that I am working for a competitor to Bartlett. Like Bartlett, I recognize that a good RP can be a good EHS specialist. In fact, I intend to hire as many of them as I possibly can.
Why am I on this like a hobo on a hot dog? Well, perhaps it is because I think it is terribly BAD FORM to show up at a site where your competitor has the contract and start holding meetings with their employees. Recruiting them in-person, over the phone, by email, by advertisement, or just networking are all acceptable ways to attract employees away from the competition. But, renting a room right outside the gate to give a wholesale sales pitch is just a little unsophisticated. I hope they realize before it is too late that the competitor they are targeting this time is not tiny Numanco from Tulsa. This one is as big as a whale, and can hurt them bad if they decide to strike back. The meetings at the casino by Prairie Island are a low-class move, and Bartlett would HATE it if somebody did that at one of their sites. It would not take a vivid imagination to picture a Bartlett Site Coordinator taking names at the door of such a meeting if Rock Nelson or I were having one outside the gate at Limerick.
You want to attract employees? Try treating them like people and paying them what they are worth.
