Hi everybody! Mike here, I am a excavator operator for a construction company in Alberta that does Neighborhood Rehab. Absolutely love my job, and am excited to share stories and experience with fellow operators. Hope to chat with you all soon! Cheers
Welcome Digger_Mike! How bad have things slowed down up there with the falling oil prices? Not bad I hope.
Welcome to the Forums Digger_Mike!:drinkup Same thing, I am wondering also as there only seems to be bad news coming from you area.
Well things have slowed down immensely. Operator jobs are not as abundant as they were at the moment, but there are a couple of benefactors that come in to play with this. We are going through a very odd winter up north, it warms up then cools down... with very little snow so far. For myself and other seasonal operators doing snow removal, it is hard to keep busy when mother nature does not agree. The ground is frozen so most of larger earthworks companies around the city i live in come to halt and wait until spring to pick back up, it looks like the larger mining companies in Fort.Macmurray are keeping busy.. but the demand for operators to go up north has waned significantly. There was an article written by our local news group CBC last summer about certain cities in Canada whom are spending more on infrastructure than others. This has been a huge benefit to young operators as myself, who wish to stay close to home and still make a decent living. From my understanding Calgary and Edmonton over the next ten years will putting in another $150-200 million dollars in upgrading, and expanding their city infrastructure. If things get progressively worse with oil prices combined with the inactivity of our NDP government, i am nervous that programs like our neighborhood rehab will be axed. Time will tell, all we can do up here is prepare for anything and everything, be careful with our money, and try to be as versatile as possible in our careers.
I am fortunate where I live that the boom/bust cycles oil production don't impact us too bad, although a bunch of people from here went to the Bakken and did well while it was going super strong. We have some local communities that are affected by mining fluctuations, but that doesn't tend to devastate the entire economy as we are largely agriculture and tourism based. I hope you enjoy the forum as much as I have. This forum and it's sister site, Heavy Truck Forums, are the best run forums that I have participated in. The first night I found this forum I ended up reading an entire thread on blade operating techniques. Before I knew it, it was 4:00 A.M.. I have time this time of year to enjoy it, but have to discipline myself the rest of the year or I won't get my paperwork done. Enjoy the forum Digger-Mike! I hope you are able to keep working through the slow down.
What part of Alberta are you from Mike? I'm from the Edmonton area, been here all my life, worked some in southern AB and some in northern AB, trying to stay local best I can.
Mike Welcome, We have a couple friends who moved from Toronto area to Canmore a couple years back.
I grew up in St.Albert most of my life, but recently moved back to the West end of Edmonton.
Fond memories of growing up just barely on the southern side of Alberta!
Welcome fellow albertan! I'm working down south, was up your way tail and d of last year!