Being good at this job transcends where you work. It does not transcend experience. When I think well rounded, I think experience,especially job coverage, of a wide variety of situations. What do you do for a glove puncture at a Pu-239 glovebox facility? How about pulling insulation from a leaky rcp, or initial entry into containment? This is not to take away from the countroom or routines, the plant runs on routines. Some folks love the count room,more power to them. I prefer the jobs. I am project oriented. I loved the outages and would do any job. Everything was new and I love being in the BRT. Now I work at a DOE facility and the challenges are no less,only different. I don't know what it is to be house in commercial.
There is a lot to be said for focusing,specializing in one area, but a lot also for wide ranging experience. Each recquires a different mindset. This topic is to broad. But since the first day I walked on site as a "rent a tech" ( I hated that term, but I've been called worse) I have thought about the difference between the two environments ,the road vs. stay at home,and the type of techs each produces. Its not the place , but the tech.IPREGEN is right, there are fantastic techs and sorry techs in both. I felt like there was competition for work while on the road, and taking the test so often made me more sharp. Also the pace of the work made me sharp. Now the pace is slow and I have to keep myself sharp. I don't work at he same pace, I don't cover work every day,so I don't feel as sharp with the coverage. I hate to say it but I believe I was a better tech ,in some but not all ways,before I got here. And its because of the slow pace.
I keep repeating myself and going around and around on this subject. Perhaps it could be narrowed a bit. I have worked in outages in Commercial,as a sub at doe sites and now house at doe. So house to me is doe. Is there a big difference between the house world of the two?