NLO Job Duties

[flamatrix99]

As far as holding a hot runner back yes that can happen and has happened. At Turkey Point going to license class is strictly determined by seniority. So you have to wait. To go to licensed class you need 3 years of power plant experience which about half our guys get from the navy. We are currently so short staffed that as soon as you get on shift and get fully qualified you are eligble to go to class. The company has trouble getting guys to agree to go to class because they do not want to take the pay cut. FPL now lets NLOs in class work overtime and they pay them bottom of the RCO payscale while in class and the go to mid scale when they get thier license.

As far as pay goes. We work so much overtime that the highest paid NLOs make as much if not more then the RCOs that turn down overtime.  I do not know how true it is but some of the Unit Supervisors tell us because of our overtime, we make more then many of the newer Unit Supervisors. They are very jealous of our OT.

One of our RCOs told me that being stuck in the box (control room) sucks but the money is good. He feels that being an NLO is the greatest job in the plant. We do have lots of freedom, you can pretty much do what you want. You have no resposibility but 100% accountability. You find something wrong you tell the control room and they take care of it. it is not like the navy where operators do maintenance. We just operate. The Maintenance Dept does maintenance. Or at least that is what they claim they do...

[fritzlittle]

Thank You JMK!  Sounds like they earn their paycheck. 

Looking forward to hearing more about it. 
I believe the holiday may have people doing other things however!!

I am currently an NLO in Texas and yes while sometimes we really have to earn our money, that is not the way it usually is. My day is fairly simple, I have morning logs I take on all the equipment I am responsible for, after all logs are taken there is not much else to do, except go on extra rounds checking to make sure your equipment status remains sat. There are days where the CR has tons of ECO's or surveillances and you spend the day running all over the plant completing all the tasks, but the support you get from other NLO's and the CR is phenomenal at my plant. From what I have read, I feel very lucky to work at the plant I work at and have the CR staff I have. For anyone wanting to enter the NLO field, I would recommend looking at the plant culture and how the CR staff treats their NLO's.