I think your time would be better used to get qualified. You will end up making more money by studying at home (working for free) and getting the quals completed. Once qualified, you can get OT money and the pay raises that come with it.
Unfortunately for us, that "time spent to get qualified" is wasted waiting on building classes to start because everyone else is qualifying too slowly. At least at my plant, its impossible to qualify early, no matter how much you know/study. I work 4 days a week, and I have entertained the idea of getting a second, "fun" job just to eat away some of my spare time, so its entirely feasible.
OP, from last year heres some numbers I saw to give you an idea,
Lowest I saw was "apprentice operator" at Fitzpatrick for 26$ an hour, the highest was Waterford 3 at 32$ an hour. Im hired in at riverbend for 31$ an hour.
Now, you cant just look at the bottom line there. A lot of the plants that start higher build slower. I.e. I cap out at 36$ an hour after two years, but some plants that start lower build much faster and cap out higher (potentially). So make sure you ask these questions.
You also need to get to a plant that will pay you to move. They pay a gross amount to move your stuff and is well worth it.
The real issue is taxed vs non taxed. You being a bonus having, tax-free deploying person, with free health care, you will most certainly take a "pay cut" at first. I pay about 150 a month on health care and insurance, I pay a lot more in taxes (no bah here!), and all that jazz. Cant look at just the salary amount. If you have kids and stuff, its gonna hurt for a minute. After a while, you can make some SERIOUS money when you hop over to the licensed realm. That said, if you work an outage during the year, you make about 8-10k a month take home.... Consider that your "deployment".
