I've got a bit before I get out of the Nav, but I'm wondering what kinds of jobs I could get that don't involve shift work. I'll have almost 9 years as an ET, qualified EWS when it's time for me to leave. The salaries for SRO are very tempting, but my wife isn't too keen on the shift work that she's had to endure at prototype. Is the shift work at a commercial plant equally demanding on a family, or is it better? Are there any jobs that have a base salary that compare to SRO without having to deal with the shift work? Or, is there anything I could do now before I'm out that would make me more competitive for a regular schedule job at a plant?
If it's 12 hour days it's quite a bit different and more family friendly than the Navy schedule.
Compared to the prototype schedule, the schedule at my plant is nothing. I work 7 night shifts in 5 weeks. No 7 day stretches of nights or anything crazy like that. Basically, at my plant (all are a little different), we use a modified DuPont schedule. It goes like this;
M T W T F S S M T W T F S S M T W T F S S M T W T F S S M T W T F S S
D D D D - - - - - - - N N N N - - - D D D - N N N - - - T T T T T - - Repeat
- = days off, so you do the math. You are only working 19 days out of 5 weeks (assuming you don't do overtime). Easy peasy lemon squeezy. I especially love the 7 day vacation every 5 weeks.
They are 12 hour shifts with T week being 8 hour days.
As far as the other jobs, at my company, things like maintenance supervisor start at about the same salary, but they get none of the license bonus, of course, and their annual bonus is smaller. But its still far better than you are doing now.
I will assume you are at least E6 and have been a work center supervisor before. If so, you would easily qualify for such a job. How long have you been qualified EWS?
When do you get out, exactly? My plant recently posted for an SRO class starting next July.
Justin
We work a modified verison of the shift above. Either of them are better than the 5 week 8 hour schedule we used to work with the 7 evenings and 7 nights shifts in a row.
I work a schedule similar to Hemis, but know that the 8 day off only happens for my dept during the summer schedule (post-outage until late-fall).
A 12 hour rotation is much better than proto-days. An 8 hour rotation is closer to proto-days.
we work a six week rotation. add in a relief week of 4 8hr days. so only 7 nights in 6 weeks. IMO the rotation is better for my family life. I have a lot more time off on shift than I ever would on a M-F job. Another option that may work for you is training. I am not sure how pay compares but they are straight days. Good Luck with whatever you decide and thank you for your service.