Its Official (unofficially)

[JustinHEMI05]

It isn't actually official until I get that license in my hand, but considering the chief examiner for my region called to let us know that everyone passed the simulator and JPMs, and I "unofficially" passed the written today... I can say that I am NW's newest SRO. 

[B.PRESGROVE]

Alright, Way to go!!!! Congrats and good job on all the hard work!!

[DDMurray]

It isn't actually official until I get that license in my hand, but considering the chief examiner for my region called to let us know that everyone passed the simulator and JPMs, and I "unofficially" passed the written today... I can say that I am NW's newest SRO. 

Congrats!!  I hope to be you in about 18 months.

[JustinHEMI05]

Thanks fellas!

DD I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.  

[HydroDave63]

Bravo Zulu, Sea Warrior!! 

[JustinHEMI05]

yay I want to be a sea warrior!  We had a good laugh about that over the post exam beers today. 

[HydroDave63]

I especially dig the way-cool Red Chinese surplus camo design, since they used it first. Nothing like looking like a South China Sea Warrior!

As of this week, you are probably the heaviest toad regarding Grid Ops as well ! 

[JustinHEMI05]

It has been some interesting reading! Although, I probably should have spent that time reading for my NRC exam. 

[Benwah033]

Congrats Justin!  I'm going nuts paying my dues in engineering right now, but hopefully it'll pay off and I can make a similar post in a couple years!

[Fermi2]

Congrats Justin. I told you you'd do ok.

[JustinHEMI05]

Thank again folks.

And Mike, thanks for all the help along the way!

[B.PRESGROVE]

aaaahhhh, the muppets, how I miss them.

[Creeker]

Congratulations!  Since my next time through won't start until late May, I hope to be you in about 2 years. 

You have to feel as accomplished as you ever will!!

Bill

[thenuttyneutron]

Congratulations!  You are on cloud nine.  Enjoy the euphoria and relax with your family for Christmas.  This time between you completing the class and going on shift will not last long so enjoy it while you have it.

How did the class do on the exam? (Did everyone pass?)

[War Eagle]

BRAVO ZULU!

Great job, Justin!

[JustinHEMI05]

Thanks friends.

Yes everyone passed with a 12/13 throughput. We had one guy just not cut it in the simulator, even after his second time through at this plant.

[B.PRESGROVE]

Im just curious for a short answer, what happens when someone fails out or doesnt cut it in simulator? 

[JustinHEMI05]

So the short answer is, it depends.

A lot of things go into that. But simply, he has an SRO certification (he passed the audit exam), so he is still useful. He can be an instructor or work in ops support or work management type of roles. That could even get him into a class elsewhere perhaps. If a guy doesn't pass the audit or make it to the audit, if he is an instant, he could be let go OR put into the next EO class, etc. It all depends on when the plant needs. I have heard of both of those cases here. One guy came in as an instant SRO, didn't make it to the audit, so they just put him in as a top rate NLO. Not a bad deal really, because now he is back in class as an RO candidate for next year. If its an NLO going for RO, he would just fall back to NLO... same for an RO upgrade to SRO.

[thenuttyneutron]

So the short answer is, it depends.

A lot of things go into that. But simply, he has an SRO certification (he passed the audit exam), so he is still useful. He can be an instructor or work in ops support or work management type of roles. That could even get him into a class elsewhere perhaps. If a guy doesn't pass the audit or make it to the audit, if he is an instant, he could be let go OR put into the next EO class, etc. It all depends on when the plant needs. I have heard of both of those cases here. One guy came in as an instant SRO, didn't make it to the audit, so they just put him in as a top rate NLO. Not a bad deal really, because now he is back in class as an RO candidate for next year. If its an NLO going for RO, he would just fall back to NLO... same for an RO upgrade to SRO.

I had a very hard time with the simulator at first.  I see lots of things fast but have the engineering mind.  I would think too much about the problems and try to understand what was going on and try to figure out what caused the failure.

I had to learn that it does not matter why the pump tripped, why the instrument is failing, why the controller was behaving the way it was.  I had to react to the casualty and trust my procedures.  I was told that big picture view is a hard thing for engineers to grasp.

I know that once I learned to control the engineer in me, simulator drills became a lot of fun.  The weird thing about it was that it was an overnight transition.  It just seemed to click all at once halfway through the CAS 2 part of class.  I talked to others and they also felt like there was a hump during their time in the program. Once you passed that hump, the class became easy.

Another hard thing I had to get over was getting pissed at myself.  A simple thing would really get me wound up and I would not let it go.  That would make the rest of the drill horrible.

I just took a look at my scores from my NRC Simulator evaluation and lowest simulator score was a 2.6.  I was very happy with how the three drills went.  I left everyone of them thinking that I nailed it.  Even people that suck on the simulator at first can become good at it if you target the problem correctly. 

Sometimes it is not the intelligence that you have to fix but other psychological issues that hammer your performance.  In my case it was learning to not get pissed off and beat myself up or stew over my mistakes.

[JustinHEMI05]

Yeah I hear that. As to the guy that was dropped though, he was missing something that can't be taught, is really what it comes down to. Besides being able to recognize the symptoms and executing the trips, you still have to have a certain intuition. For example, out of the bazillion alarms alarming, you need to be able have your gut tell you which on is key. But, on top of that, he had the self defeating attitude you mentioned. When he made a mistake, there was no recovery and the last thing you need is a guy melting down in the middle of a scenario.

For my final exam crew, I was put with 2 guys that were just like you, except that they hadn't figured out how to stop thinking like an engineer yet. It became clear real fast why I was put with them. I tend to be pretty aggressive during a scenario and if I see a guy waffling, I don't have a problem grabbing him by the scruff and dragging him through the scenario. By the end of that 2 weeks, those guys stopped trying to out think the scenario and on game day, they brought their A game. Also, my strength is being able to zero in on that one alarm or indication that is really driving the scenario. That allowed me to help them stop over analyzing and react better to what the plant was doing. I was very proud of our performance last week, my team really brought it together when needed and it was a lot of fun doing the exam with them.

Justin

[adrianI]

It isn't actually official until I get that license in my hand, but considering the chief examiner for my region called to let us know that everyone passed the simulator and JPMs, and I "unofficially" passed the written today... I can say that I am NW's newest SRO. 

Wouldn't I be the newest considering I finished the exam after you?

[JustinHEMI05]

Except you are new to NW. 

[B.PRESGROVE]

Aahhh adrian1 he does have a point.  Senority does have its privys.  But Karma to you for passing your test, and Karma to Justin for the same.

[JustinHEMI05]

Well now its official, license came in the mail today. 

[HydroDave63]

"I'll have to update the N-1 contingency list in SCADA now..."

-oops-

Congrats !