Career Path > Safety
Safety
joey71:
I checked out the 360training online that nukeworker offers and they had sent me a price list of all their osha training, that is obviously what I am interested in.
My question is would there be a future in the nuke biz for the safety work? (I know safety is a priority in this business that is why I ask.)
I have 14 yrs in the carpenters union and would like to go a different direction in my career path, I really enjoy working inside of the plants and would like to stay that way. What other training would be needed for a full time safety position?
Also right now they do not offer the 511 online, that is the pre req to the 501. However they offer tons of training in the "general industry" and "construction" --
Which one of these would be geared more toward the nuke industry? I am guessing the "general industry" would be it. But when I "guess" -- usually I am wrong.
Thanks for the help, Joe
Already Gone:
The 511 is also known as OSHA 30. I do believe that they offer it on line. But you can probably get it for free at the union hall. You do not need an OSHA 501. All that does is give you the right to teach the OSHA 10 and OSHA 30 courses. It makes you a safety TRAINER. There is a HUUUUUGE difference between a safety trainer and a safety specialist. Quite a few of my guys have the 500 or 501, but it doesn't, in my opinion, make them better safety specialists.
You can take a lot of courses, and spend a lot of money doing it, and still not be employable as a safety specialist.
You need practical experience in dealing with actual safety issues. RP techs are generally the first place I go to when I need to hire someone. The majority of them have been doing the industrial safety along with the radiological safety on most of their jobs. Even those who haven't can translate one into the other without a lot of effort.
I've had a few people come in from the manual trades. some of them claimed to have done a lot of work as General Foremen or Supervisors - but obviously didn't pick up any leadership skills from that.
If you have 14 years in the UBC&J, a change in direction might be a little difficult. The Safety Professional, is a member of management. There is no union contract, no steward to protect you, usually no double-time, frequently no pension fund or vacation pay. I don't mean to make it sound bad. My guys and I do pretty well. But someone who is used to working under union contracts, with union benefits and rules, may not like the change.
Also, as a skilled tradesman you will have to go through a dramatic transition of your mind. You will have to forget everything you know about working like a carpenter without forgetting anything about how to do carpenter work. You'll have to learn everyone else's job too.
Your best path to jobs in safety is to take a few of these courses. Start with the OSHA 10 or OSHA 30. Don't try allof them or spend a lot of money yet. Then try to get on with a company as a supervisor for a while. Give the weekly safety meetings, do the inspection reports, write up the injury and near-miss reports, do the Job Hazard Analyses, and hangout with your safety man as much as possible. Try to learn what he knows. find out what he looks for and how he finds it. Start thinking like he does ( basically, you have to constantly ask yourself: "what is the stupidest thing that could be done right now?" or "What unlikely - nearly impossible - situation can come up and bite somebody in the ass right now?).
Then, grow a thick skin. You have to be wearing a hide like an elephant to do this job and not let it get to you. If you have sensitive feelings - or care even a little bit about what the workers think of you - you're cooked. You are going to have to stand in front of a group of people who have done a job for decades, and tell them how to do it. You are going to tell them things that they will think are stupid and un-necessary. You are going to subject yourself to ridicule just about daily because you are suggesting things that - although REQUIRED BY LAW AND THE CONTRACT - they will consider to be impossible or just stupid. They won't waste a heartbeat in telling you so either.
Management, on the other hand, preaches loud and often that safety is their number one priority, but they will put only one safety specialist on noon to midnight to cut costs. (Like to see them work their engineers and managers that way, huh?) They will complain that the schedule and the budget won't permit them to do the work the way you know it needs to be done. So, they'll undercut you, distract you, send you on a goose chase, or tell you to take a day off while they "git-r-done". They'll think of you as nothing but an overhead expense that produces no revenue (ignoring the millions in workers' comp costs that you'll save them every year).
Still want to do it? Good luck. It is the best, most rewarding job I have ever had.
retired nuke:
Beer - I have enjoyed the last year as a safety guy - we appointed a union member to our safety dept as part of our VPP program, and I got the spot.
I agree, the OSHA 30 and some experience in safety at a jobsite is needed. While it seems second nature for RPs, it is a shift in mindset. I can imagine it's even more so for craft. I fond that my biggest safety headaches are RPs though....many seem to feel exempt because they "aren't doing the work"... even though they are still at risk from the energy isolation of the tagout, or the confined space.
I am pursuing the OHST (hopefully before the end of the year) and will keep my hand in even after I return to RP next year.
Mike McFarlin:
--- Quote from: mutant on Jun 12, 2009, 11:05 ---A 40-hour OSHA course does not make a safety dude or dudette the same way passing the NRRPT exam does not make you a competent HP or having the OSHA scaffologist cert makes you a good carpenter.
Safety it is not the cake walk job it appears to be.
--- End quote ---
Amen, brother. Of course, anything worth having is not easy!
Already Gone:
So true. So very true.
I am approached almost daily by people who show interest in working for us.
My impression is that may believe that the money is the only difference between my job and theirs. In my case, I started with an ambition to move up the ladder of responsibility. I was more dissatisfied with the limitations of my job than with the money - although I wasn't completely happy with that either.
I know that many techs just want to be foot-soldiers. They could do more, but don't want to. Others think that they should be better compensated for the job they have without taking on more responsibility, and they are not entirely wrong about that. It is easy to make the mistake of watching someone do a job and thinking that you can do it too.
I guess that you could look at a lot of people and think , "That guy gets paid a lot more than I do and doesn't seem to be working nearly as hard. So, why not me?"
That is the point where a lot of people leave their analysis. But, you really have to look a lot deeper than that. Safety management requires a different set of skills that are not readily apparent to an observer. A course will give you information, but the skills have to be developed by the individual.
It isn't hard to make my job look easy, because the effort does not appear on the surface. This is probably true of any job. I think a lot about how many people watch the RP tech and just assume that it is as easy as it looks. For that matter, driving an Indy car looks pretty simple too if you don't think about it very much. Most of you married guys with children at home have probably thought that it would be nice to swap places with your wife - and very few of us have held that belief for long. I, for one, know that my wife could go make us a good living, but I wouldn't take her job - even if I could do it almost as well as she does.
No job is really as easy as it seems to be, but that doesn't mean you can't learn it. In my humble opinion, most of the people on this board could learn my job if they try.
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