I remember my first outage they would not pay you anything until you had passed all the training and physical. Had a person failed, you went home with nothing. So the company had nothing at risk. I did not know this until I passed all my tests and got paid as they explained to me at Riverbend for Numanco in 2003. I was down to my last $100 after traveling across the country to get there. I lived in my van at a campground for $25.00 per week. When I came to take the first test 1 hour after I arrived, the first test was a "Site specific" test that my recruiter did not have a copy of the study guide. I luckily met another returnee in the campground who had a copy of the study guide and I was able to pass. (The guide was 200 pages, and had things like what different color badges and their meaning, something you would not know without a study guide). It is like learning to swim in a raging river at flood stage, what they expected new techs to be able to do. Maybe things are better now, good luck.