OK here is the deal i am a senior in high school so i want to be a heavy equipment operator. yes i know you hear it all the time i know you have to start from the bottom with a shovel and work your way up. so i was wondering would working on a harvest crew be a good idea to get heavy equipment experience would the operating tractors count towards getting into a operating engineer apprenticeship the only operating experiences i got was driving whites and olivers when i was younger when my dad was a farm hand. i figure that if i go on a harvest crew i can save up some money to go to school to get a degree in business, and be able to get a cdl with out having to go to a school for it and be able to travel alittle even tho its work. so what are your opinions on the plan am i on the right track? thank you all opinions and ideas are appreciated sorry mods if this is in the wrong place.
Farm equipment experience couldn't hurt. It won't teach you all the skills you need for running equipment for a contractor-but it is responsibility for safe operation and proper maintenance. That is good experience. Also it shows you have no fear of machines. So it's more relevant experience than say, flipping hamburgers or working in a computer store. (Not that there is anything wrong with those jobs, of course!)
Seeing that you are in high school, I have a question that has been bugging me for a while. Do they still teach grammar, punctuation and all that sort of stuff. I remember way back when I was in school, there was a certain requirement to write in proper English. Not that I was much good at it because this was before the days of word processors, with spell checkers and such. Now I know that your keyboard is not broken and the shift/caps buttons are working, seeing you put in three upper case letters in your question, plus used the shift button to put in a question mark. The worrying thing from my point of view is either you do not know how to construct a proper sentence, or you are too lazy to try and write to the best of your ability. If it is the former then the education system needs a good kick up the backside, if it is the latter then you need to take a good look at yourself, insofar that if you can't be bothered to write as well as you can then what sort of effort are you going to put into operating equipment? Look I am not trying to be all high and mighty, my grammar is pretty ordinary and I do use spell checkers, however I aim to write in such a way that it is reasonably easy to read, this is a matter of personal pride, common courtesy and image.
Ok i have struggled in school alot i am just starting to get back on my feet. i used to not care about school till later on i struggled i know i do not have the best grammer and i always get crap for it on forums im sorry i am trying to get better at it.
Hendrik, well said. I don't expect perfect spelling and grammar either. But it is so much more pleasant to read when the poster has put a bit of effort into what they have written.
Come to my place to fill out an application and give me something like you have done here and it goes straight to the trash. You better be able to do it legible and have it so it can be read if you expect to get anyone's attention. Same goes for trying to become any kind of an apprentice too. That is unless you know someone or have family to get you in.
In all honesty, your grammar is good chevyboy. As I read your first post, sentences are structured well, good choice of words, the only thing lacking is punctuation. You seem to have your wits, able to put your thoughts into words well enough, I don't see where it would be much difficulty for you to pick up on the punctuation part of writing, chin up and give it a go. :drinkup
Hay boyz, Dats da way wez boyz in sota wer taut to speek in sota. gaut some of da best teechers in da nort land. az far az workin in da ag world, befor u go to callege, it iz far beter to work denstay at hom playin video games.
Wow, that was even tough to write for me. Anywaz........( stuck in a rut). Anyways, a lot of employers will give you a chance in the heavy equipment field, but you are going to need the drive and the willingness to learn to be able to make a career out of it. As far as me, if i am going to put an operator in a half million dollar machine, he (she) better damn well take care of it. If your plans include being an owner of a company, where communication skills become more critical, then an proper education becomes a must.
I suspect chevyboy has gotten the point about the importance of proper use of grammar, spelling, and punctuation. And while I won't criticize the making of the point, because it is a very valid point, any further piling on would, it seems to me, be making him personally pay for the shortcomings of many others, and cross the line out of the realm of constructive criticism. He obviously has the ambition to seek advice from us regarding a career in this field. Let's reward that ambition now, and keep to the topic he presented us with...
And now, in reply to the opening post... I've always felt that there are a couple of different things going on with a good operator. One is the mastery of control of the machine itself, and the other is the mastery of making the machine handle the material. I've never personally had any experience with Ag equipment, but I'm sure there's enough in common with construction equipment that getting operating experience on one type will help equip one with the skills necessary to master the other type. All other things being equal, a guy with operating experience, and a proven level of competence, on any kind of machine, is more likely to advance into an operator's job sooner than somebody lacking any operating experience. Now, you still might have to labor in the construction industry first, to earn a shot at an operating job, because by paying attention there, you learn a lot about how the machine handles the material. Maybe one of the union guys can answer that. I'd rather doubt it counts for anything, except that it might make you a more attractive candidate to become an apprentice. See the constructive criticism posted above.
Thank you for the comments and criticism. yes i know you got to start with a shovel and that i have to improve my grammer. im going to be applying for labor jobs and such after i am done with my internship which i start tommarow. Thank you for taking the time to reply.
Sorry digger if it came across that way, I was not trying to criticize chevyboy, just throwing out a lighthearted jab to others that have posted. My point is that attitude starting out, to me personally, is just as important as what one can learn at an apprentice school. Case in point, we have a few guys stop by looking for a job and say they can run anything and everything. Those are the ones to look out for.( I wont go into detail, that's a long story) Had another gentleman stop by said he knew little about the equipment but was laid off and was sick and tired of sitting at home and needed a job. This was only 2 weeks after being laid off. His background was agricultural plant operations. After a year and a quarter he has proven to be a great employee, always shows up on time and always willing to jump in and try new things. He's made a few mistakes but heck, who hasn't. My point is that eyes and ears are more important than the mouth when starting out, and if he has an opportunity to start out running tractors, combines, trucks or what ever, the attitude with which one shows up with in the morning will go a long ways. This young lad makes my point. Even though he is a senior in high school he has decided on a career path and is looking for advice on how to achieve his goal. So many kids will spend years (and tons of money) in college without even having a goal in mind after graduating. chevyboy, I would try and find a small, well established, dirt moving company that may be looking for help when u graduate from high school. Show up for work everyday and look and listen. You can learn a lot from others.
No problem, and I understand your intent. I was just looking at it from the other side, and in another post or three, chevyboy might've started to feel ganged up on. Obviously he's ok with things, so, carry on....
i live a block away from my school and i go there 20 minutes early i like being on time and i hate missing days of school. i do not plan on going the college route just not for me i rather do an apprenticeship. And i am not a know it all i ask how stuff to be done if i do not know how to do it.
Thanks Digger you just saved my laptop
Chevyboy149, All of the above critisism, while a bit terse, is very valid. If you become an operator you will be required to fill out time cards, equipment maintenance sheets, etc. and the person that reads what you write will appreciate at least an attempt at decent spelling and grammer. I am certainly not a great example, but there is no shame in improving your literary skills. Regarding your plan, I began running farm equipment at an early age and then was hired to learn to operate construction equipment. The harvest route will teach you familiarty with large equipment, and good habits. For example, regardless of how new and fancy the modern equipment is with self diagnostics, automated fluid level checks, etc., my employees are required to manually check the engine oil level, coolant level, and hydraulic oil level before starting the equipment each day. Rarely do these need fluid added, but this requires us to look at the engine etc. and perhaps notice something else that may be about to cause a problem. There are principles to moving dirt that apply to many different machines. Starting from a level spot applies to blades, dozers, loaders, excavators, scrapers, and more. If you can find an experienced (older) operator to chat with and perhaps mentor you, and if you show that you listen to what they say and ask thoughtful questions, you may find opportunities to get started in this field. Like digger242J, I have not been involved with the unions, but I have worked with a number of union operators. You may want to talk to a local operating engineers union and see what their apprentice progam requires. Good luck, and as others here have indicated, I respect you for your willingness to ask the question in the first place!
Thank you oxbow i think i will start to look around see if i can find a mentor. Thank you everyone for the great advice i appreciate it.
Gee, I really hate to get back to the grammar and punctuation thing, but there's one thing that really jumps out at me... The rule is that the personal pronoun "I", is always typed in the upper case (capital) letter, and it makes good sense. It's a title, just like "Mr." or "Mrs.", or "Doctor", or "President", or "Your Name". Those things are capitlaized as a sign of respect. Don't give people the impression that you think you're not worthy of the respect of having your personal pronoun capitalized.
eye agree small d digger242j
OK lets start at the basics, when you are referring to yourself you capitalize, I refer to myself as I. When you refer to some ones name you capitalize it, my name is Hendrik and I write in traditional English. Why is English capitalized? It is because England is the name of a country. You would feel weird if I wrote america, or the united states of america. Would that be usa? What about minnesota, would that make you small? I am not saying you will be a scholar or English professor but make an effort to understand and progress will be made. Sounds to me like you want to be able to write better and I as one will be willing to help you with this, now I know it's not just pure laziness, same as being an operator, lazy f's (sic(spelling in correct)) will be shown the door, while those who work hard will be welcome.
Instead of sniping at him, does anyone on here have the guts to give Chevyboy a job? If I was in the US and had the means - I most certainly would give him a chance. It's all he wants and probably what he deserves. You can see what he wants to do and the fact he has ambition. So far, everyone just wants give him hassle for his spelling - well I say......big deal. If you read the his posts he's already saying he has an internship (and these are unpaid). That shows commitment. It really does. Give your youngsters a chance Yanks. Has anyone got the guts to give Chevyboy a real helping hand, or are you boys in the USA just a bunch of old farts far too worried about your spelling and grammar?
Lol... OCR
If I were in a position to, yeah, I'd give him a try at least. Many younger guys in his position might've been put off already by all the fatherly advice he's gotten on a subject he didn't even ask about. I respect the fact that he's still engaged in this conversation, and in the grand scheme of things, I agree, big deal. I've known some darn good operators whom I'd consider functionally illiterate. To tell the truth, I did feel just a bit hypocritical going back to the grammar issue after I'd personally admonished everybody to get back on topic, but I gave it some thought, and concluded a couple of things--One, that the issue of I/i was important enough to address, and two, that this is sort of a "teachable moment" for chevyboy. He's obviously interested enough to haved asked for advice, he's put up with us so far, and he seems to actually paying attention. I can't speak for everybody, but I think most of what's been said here has been in the spirit of constructive criticsm. Old farts? Speaking for myself, yeah, guilty as charged, and it's getting worse every day.
Chevyboy, first off, welcome to the forum, seems some here forget what its like being new to anything and most here have forgotten what their mothers taught them years ago, to be curtious to others, second thing, not everyone is cut out for school, college and beyond, I fully understand that, I see that in my own family every day. To give you an half attempted answer to your question from someone who's done just what your asking is this. Go for it, if you can get onto a harvest crew, do it, forget about heavy equipement for a minute and focus on what it'll teach you in the long run. I've done the harvest crew thing, it took years to look back to see just exactly what it did do for me, and it was beyond valuable, I'll just point out a few bonus's. One your young, don't take it the wrong way at all, no offense intended but you have no experience with anything, no basic equipment experiece, no coworker expience's, no boss experience, no real hard core sitting behind the wheel of anything experience, so go get some. It'll teach you how to deal with coworkers, that everyone out there isn't like you are, there are places in this world you've never been to, things you've never seen, machines you've never driven or operated, boss's who are impossible to work for and please, those that are the best on earth and everything in between. It'll teach you if you want to sit in one machine for hours and days on end doing the same sort of job day in and day out. It'll teach you how to deal with customers, not yours but those you are hired to deal with, teach you how to handle the public as your boss wants you to do, not what you want to do, there is a difference, you'll learn this over time. You'll see things in places you've never dreamed ever existed or could exist in today age and also how to deal with those issues as they come up. It'll teach you to be on time as your told to be there and how to be there, work in conditions you never knew existed on earth and to shut up and do them anyhow despite what your body is telling you, it'll teach you things you never dreamed of learning.............ever. If anyone here on this forum had ever done anything of what your asking they'd tell you the same thing, go forth and gain knowledge and experience, will it teach you to operate a CatD10 dozer, no, but it will teach you things to prepare you for the day you do, your young and as I tell my kids everyday, you were looking for a job when this one came along, first go out and figure out what you want to do with the rest of your life, if something better comes along on the way, be smart enough to see it and take advantage of it, don't quit just because its hard or different, but always advance yourself up the ladder of sucess, don't settle on something thats easy or nice or simple, if you do that, where you quit is where you end up the rest of your life. Just be prepared for what is to come, and it isn't what your going to expect in any way, if you have dreams of operating a machine and thats your focus, I don't want to jar that idea too much, but the harvest is far more than you've ever dreamed it could be, its long hours, to the tune of when I did it, we logged 120-140 hours per week on each machines hour meter, yes that means a few hours a night sleep, we didn't take shifts running them, thats what I put on my machine each week, we lived in the unspeackable conditions, in a lot of different motels, bunkhouses, and yes in the cabs of trucks at times. I worked with the scum of the earth, those avoiding the law, those with drug and alcohol abuse issues, those that couldn't get any other job on earth anywhere, most didn't have a drivers liscense anymore, due to alcohol, drugs or too many tickets. I saw equipment used, abused and also treated very well, and everything in between, saw more illegal things done that I can count, saw the best of people and worst of people all in one day. Went without sleep for days, and slept for days on rainy days, fixed machines in the 120 degree plus heat and in downpours of rain, been in dust storms so bad I didn't think I'd live, been near tornados and in severe thunderstorms been in the best weather I'd ever seen, work never stopped in any of it. I drove a rounting car at over 150 mph to get to areas to block traffic and find out about road construction and sat in standstill traffic for hours waiting for anything to happen, sometimes even on the same day, eluded authorities and at the same token, sought out authorities to help us out, again on the same day. Been in charge of feeding 30 plus hungry people and been waiting to be fed when it was hours late or didn't happen at all that day, seen machinery totalled out, vehicles totalled out, been in high speed vehicles to get coworkers to medical help and also to find cellullar reception to call medical help, withnessed heart atacks happen, strokes, alcohol and cigarette wtthdrawl, which required medical attention to save the individuals lives and everythng in between, I'll say this very slowly, and only once, the harvest industry isn't for the faint of heart, its not very well regualted, if at all, hours are determined by your boss, not by law, agriculture is a far different industry that heavy equipment, but they still have a few things in common, people, customers, and a job to do, people to get along with, and work to be done, equipment to be run and unless the machines run, nobody makes money, its just somewhat different is all, but its still experience and lessons to be learned to advance you into the next portion of your life. Just remember one thing, its your life and what you do with that is up to you, not your boss or coworkers and its just a job, don't do anything you don't feel is right or can come back later in life to haunt you, stay away from booze, drugs and as I'd like to call them, the darker side of any idustry and always look for the positives and when the negatives outweight the positives, its time to move on to something else. I've had friends that did the harvest for years and loved it, had others that quit on day one and never tried it again. I personally liked it, yes it had its downfalls, but the rewards outweighted the downfalls and I also found a good crew to work on as well for the most part, with a pretty good boss who had a pretty descent handle on the whole ordeal, just he can't be everywhere all the time and he was pretty spread out in terms of size, even he admitted it was a detrament. Its not a crime to not exactly know what you want to do in life and if school isn't your thing, go find out what is, if finding a heavy euipment job is in store for you, then take it, if a harvest job is available, do that to see what its like, any experince is better than none, as for education, always keep learning, knowledge is essential to any career and it doens't necessarily mean from a book, you'll learn every day of your life till the day you die. Book smarts, grammer, reading, classes, and all that entails is great, I doubt anyone here will say, they learned too much in school, most will admit if they could do it all over again, they'd taken school far more seriously than they did, taken harder subjects, gone further on for more education somewhere and its always an option for anyone, but until you figure out what it is you want to do, try something different and do the harvest crew. Just my two cents worth, best of luck
Great post, Randy. :notworthy
I concur, well put!
Yeah, really great, Randy. :drinkup
chevyboy149 Just a few thoughts from an older guy , I have heard it said that 80% of your job is just showing up . There is some truth to that . I had an older gentleman tell me once " Whatever job your boss has , Learn it well to the point he never has to tell you twice how to get it done . Make that boss think that he cannot start the day without you , BUT never forget your replacement has filled out an application " Show up on time .. EVERY time . If you don't know something , Say so . Don't BS your way though something and create a mess . The equipment pays your salary , Take care of it . The employer is there to make money . If you can't help him do that , he don't need you . While these thoughts will seem off the wall to some they have kept me employed at the same construction company for nearly 33 years . I have worked with 3 different guys that spent time with harvest crews . The most honest statement I heard from the 3 was " I wouldn't take a million bucks for the experience I gained but I don't want to do it again " . You can consider the harvest crew your introduction to equipment .
oh for crying out loud, lay off the spelling. spelling really is nothing to worry about in this industry, heck I know people who can barely read or write yet they still do fine in the industry. you'll get there mate, i'm 17 and i already run excavators for the company I work for, it takes time but hopefully you work with someone whose willing to try teach you.
Thank you randy88 for taking the time to tell me somewhat of your experiences with a harvest crew and the great advice. I figure it wont hurt to try it for a season If i like it who knows I may do another season I just think its kind of step towards adulthood in a way. thanks everyone for advice I appreciate it.
Chevyboy, I stumbled across this foundation ( www.aemp.org ) that offers scholarships for education in the heavy equipment industry. This is not an endorsement or recommendation, but perhaps worth looking at.
Thank you I think ill have to apply for it.
The local 49 operators union has a very good apprentice program.