Career Path > Coming Back

Coming back into Nuclear (Hatch)

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east2009:
Just thought I would say hello and tell you a little about me. Graduated HS in 1977. I went to work at Hatch in June or July 1978 as a PEO (after 3 months as a laborer at a fossil plant) and left in December of 1979 to go to work for RAD Services. I really wanted to pursue a career as a recording artist and thought that HP would be a great way to ensure that I wouldn't starve. They assigned me to a plant in Salem, NJ. My nuclear career  pretty much went downhill from there and very quickly. I was working 7 days a week 12 hours a day as a level II technician. (I should have known things were heading downhill when someone unknown caved in the driver door of my just painted '76 Camaro on my 1st day there). Anyway, after about 3 or 4 weeks, the boss comes into the trailor and tells me there is a problem with my preliminary psychological screening exam. What ! They flew me to Penn to meet with a shrink (about midnight) who gave me an exam that consisted of about 700 questions (called the Minnesota Exam or something like that) followed by the ink blot test. After about 2 days back in NJ the boss came in and handed me the report which said I was unfit to work in a nuclear facility, possibly homicidal and who knows what else. A year or so later I found out that the mental health field had deemed the test I took to be completely invalid and had quit using it. I was playing music for a living then and just let it go. That is the biggest regret of my life. I became a computer tech in 1992 and left the field in Dec 2005 after getting my real estate license. I wish there was a way I could go back to being a nuke. I absolutely loved the environment, the technology and most of the people. I spent almost 2 years at Hatch with the master keys to everything, including the remote shutdown panel, just to have some quack deem me unfit to even be onsite. I'm sure it would be impossible to try and get back in after over 20 years. By the way, I haven't injured anyone or been accused of needing mental therapy since. Ha. Any thoughts ?

Roll Tide:
I split this out, and moved it to a separate thread.

It looks like you want to be a road tech again. There are needs for good deconners for the Spring outage season. But look around here first. It is a different world than 1980 in the nuke field.

east2009:
Thanks, Rolltide, for the reply. I would absolutely love to go back to being a road tech. Even if I only did it during the winter months when real estate is all but dead, it would be great. But I would seriously consider going back full time. I would love a heads-up on what I could expect to be required of me. We didn't have certifications and such back then. What is required now ? It would be great to know if going back is even an option for me. Anyone you could steer me to for a consultation ?

Roll Tide:
To get back in the door, talk to Bartlett. They advertise here, so you can see their links / opportunities. The contractor demand season is typically Spring and Fall, with only a few jobs across the heart of Summer or Winter. Look around at the site here, you may be surprised at the differences.

nukedog:
Roll tide is right it has changed, for one thing they got this thing called 10CFR26. That ran half the techs out of the BIZ and saved the other half lives.

Good luck

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